The structure of radio sources - the Molonglo papers

Abstract

The Molonglo Cross Radio Telescope was the last of three remarkable interferometers built by Bernard Mills. Built between 1961 and 1967, it improved both resolution and sensitivity by an order of magnitude over the Fleurs Mills Cross and all contemporary parabolic telescopes. In its operation over 11 years to 1978 it made definitive surveys of both galactic and extragalactic sources in the Southern sky. Richard Schilizzi, whose career was celebrated at this conference, began his radio astronomy at Sydney University in 1967, the year that the Molonglo Cross telescope made its first pencil beam observations. This paper describes the history of the Cross telescopes, and the research by the Sydney group up to the departure of Richard to Caltech in 1973 and the dismantling of the Cross in 1978.