Welcome to the home page for the Chilbolton Observatory.
Chilbolton Observatory is home to a wide range of science facilities covering research in atmospheric science, radiocommunications, astronomy and space science and technology.
The Chilbolton Facility for Atmospheric and Radio Research (CFARR) is one of the world's most advanced meteorological measurement facilities, and is home to the world's largest fully steerable meteorological radar, the Chilbolton Advanced Meteorological Radar (CAMRa). Other facilities include cloud radars, lidars, radiometers and surface meteorological instruments. Live data from Chilbolton are showcased on the Chilbolton Weather Web.
The Space Monitoring Facility harnesses the power of the 25m antenna to track and characterize Earth orbiting satellites.
The RAL Space Satellite Ground Station has 4.5m and 6.1m antennas at Chilbolton, in addition to further antennas at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
Since 2010 Chilbolton Observatory has been home to LOFAR-UK, part of the Europe-wide LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope.
Chilbolton Observatory is part of the STFC. The facilities at Chilbolton are run by the Chilbolton Group of RAL Space at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and are funded largely through the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
