Lovell, Sir Bernard (Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell), 1913–, English radio astronomer, b. Oldland Common, Gloucestershire, England, Ph.D. Univ. of Bristol, 1936. He was a member of the cosmic-ray research team at the Univ. of Manchester, was occupied with radar research during World War II, and in 1946 showed that radar echoes could be obtained from daytime meteor showers, which are invisible using optical astronomical techniques. Lovell was the leader of the team that built at Jodrell Bank, near Manchester, England, what was then the largest steerable radiotelescope (completed 1957). Finished just in time to track the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, the telescope has been instrumental in pinpointing the exact locations of manned and unmanned satellites and space probes, though this was not its intended or primary use. The 250-ft-diameter (76-m) telescope (since surpassed in size) is now a part of the Jodrell Bank Observatory Jodrell Bank Observatory (jôd`rəl), observatory for radio astronomy located at Jodrell Bank, Macclesfield, Cheshire, England.
..... Click the link for more information. , which Lovell directed (1945–81). Among his publications are Science and Civilization (1939), Radio Astronomy (1952), Meteor Astronomy (1954), The Story of Jodrell Bank (1968), Emerging Cosmology (1980), and an autobiography, Astronomer by Chance (1990).

Lovell, Sir (Alfred Charles) Bernard

(born Aug. 31, 1913, Oldland Common, Gloucestershire, Eng.) British radio astronomer. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol, worked for the Air Ministry during World War II, and lectured at the University of Manchester after the war. He built the first giant radio telescope (1957) at Jodrell Bank, near Manchester; with a bowl diameter of 250 ft (76 m), the instrument is used for astronomical research and spacecraft tracking and communication.