Corporate Body

CSIRO Solar Observatory (1967 - 1987)

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

From
22 September 1967
Culgoora, New South Wales, Australia
To
1987

Summary

The CSIRO Solar Observatory at Culgoora, New South Wales was opened 22 September 1967. The observatory featured a radioheliograph for observing the sun. The CSIRO decided to close the observatory and despite attempts for it to be transferred to the University of Sydney, it closed in 1987.

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Details

The work at Dapto [on a dairy farm in New south Wales] lasted from 1952 to 1963 when it became obvious that CSIRO's solar radio astronomers would have to take the step into 'big science' if valuable work were to continue. One of Pawsey's final achievements with CSIRO was to persuade the Ford Foundation of America to grant the $US630 000 needed for a radioheliograph-a unique radio telescope designed by Wild and his colleagues which records two-dimensional images of the Sun in the 'light' of radio waves. A fresh radio image is produced each second. Sited at the CSIRO Solar Observatory at Culgoora, 480 kilometres northwest of Sydney, the radioheliograph received its first message from the Sun in August 1967. [Source: Surprise and Enterprise pdf pages 33 and 49]

Related People

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

  • CSIRO Solar Observatory, Culgoora, NSW - Records, 1966 - 1988, MS 167; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details
  • John Paul Wild - Records, 1975 - 1980, MS 136; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details
  • Ralph Edwin Loughhead - Records, 1965 - 1998, MS 201; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details
  • Ronald Gordon Giovanelli - Records, 1910 - 1987, MS 176; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

Books

  • McKay, Andrew, Surprise and Enterprise: Fifty Years of Science for Australia: CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia) (Melbourne: CSIRO, 1976), 48 pp, https://www.eoas.info/bib-pdf/ASBS00655.pdf. pdf pages 33 and 49. Details

Resources

Ailie Smith

Created: 16 April 2012, Last modified: 3 August 2026

EOAS ID: biogs/P005044b.htm

This Edition: 2026 August - Bibliographies
Larneuk - Gariwerd calendar - Pre-spring: late July to August - season of nesting birds
Reference: https://www.bom.gov.au/resources/indigenous-weather-knowledge/indigenous-seasonal-calendars/gariwerd-calendar#bom-anchor-list__item-larneuk-season-of-nesting-birds

Publisher: Swinburne University of Technology.

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"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260