ASTRON/JIVE Open Day 2006

The annual ASTRON/JIVE Open Day was held at the ASTRON/JIVE offices in Dwingeloo on 22 October 2006. We had a great turnout with an estimated 3000 visitors. In addition to activities for the children, presentations by various staff and an open tour of the facilities, many visitors congregated in JIVE's correlator room to learn about VLBI and e-VLBI from JIVE staff.

Visitors throng to the main hall of ASTRON for demonstrations throughout the day.

Visitors brave the steep stairs to visit the correlator room. At the bottom of the stairs, Jan Buiter presents posters about EVN science and Max Avruch fields questions about the Huygens space probe's descent through Titan's atmosphere and the data transfer to JIVE.

Visitors to the correlator room are treated to a tour of the central processing center, a VLBI demonstration and question and answer opportunities with JIVE staff about VLBI, e-VLBI and astronomy.

Correlator operator Martin Leeuwinga gives a VLBI demonstration showing how additional telescopes increase resolution.

Martin gives a demonstration to another group of visitors.

Correlator operator Hans Tenkink describes how VLBI data is sent to and processed by the correlator.

Hans shows the correlator to another group of visitors.

Visitors watch a short film about the Huygens space probe's descent through Titan's atmosphere, and JIVE support scientist Max Avruch describes how the data was sent to and processed by JIVE.

Bob Campbell, head of the Science Operations and Support Group at JIVE, talks with a visitor about the ionosphere.

EXPReS public outreach officer Kristine Yun waits for visitors to the tent with a poster describing e-VLBI and its benefits over traditional VLBI.

JIVE office manager Marjan Tibbe explains EXPReS and e-VLBI to visitors.