The Lovell 76 metre telescope is a parabolic prime focus dish named after the founding director of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, Sir Bernard Lovell. The observatory is owned and operated by the University of Manchester.

The Lovell 76 metre radio telescope.
Credit: Ian Morrison, Jodrell Bank Observatory

The telescope was commissioned in 1957 and played a prominent role in Britain’s observations of the Sputnik satellite.

The telescope routinely operates at frequencies between 408 MHz and 6 GHz and as part of the MERLIN radio imaging array.

The telescope was involved in the discovery of many of the early pulsars, the first gravitational lens, and the first millisecond pulsar in a globular cluster.