The Paul Wild Observatory, also known as the Narrabri Observatory and Culgoora Observatory, is an astronomical research facility located about 24 km west of Narrabri, New South Wales, Australia. It is the home of the Australia Telescope Compact Array, and the Culgoora Solar Observatory.
The site itself and the Australia Telescope Compact Array are run by Australia's science agency, the CSIRO. – which ran from 1967 to 1984.
The Australia Telescope Compact Array began operating at the site in 1988.
Current facilities
- The Australia Telescope Compact Array – a six-dish radio telescope interferometer
- The Ionospheric Prediction Service (Space Weather Services) Culgoora Solar Observatory
- A node of the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (BiSON)
- An element of the Magnetic Data Acquisition System (MAGDAS) global magnetometer array
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File:CSIRO ScienceImage 3757 Radio Telescopes at Narrabri.jpg| Four antenna dishes of the compact array
File:CSIRO Australia Telescope, Narrabri 1.JPG| Dishes of the Compact Array, showing track
File:CSIRO ScienceImage 11692 Antennas of CSIROs Australia Telescope Compact Array.jpg| A compact arrangement of dishes, at the north spur junction
File:CSIRO ScienceImage 11093 Australia Telescope Compact Array.jpg| East-west track of Array, before construction of north spur. 6th dish in far distance
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Past facilities
- Culgoora Radioheliograph
- CSIRO Culgoora Solar Observatory
- Sydney University Stellar Interferometer
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File:Culgoora_radio-heliograph_antenna,_1970s.jpg|An Antenna of Culgoora Radioheliograph, 1970s
File:CSIRO_radio-heliograph_antennae,_Culgoora,_Australia,_ca_1968.jpg|7 of the 96 Antennae of Radioheliograph, c.1968
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In the media
The children's/teen's television adventure series Sky Trackers was filmed at the site in 1993, with the antenna dishes of the Australia Telescope Compact Array being prominently featured.
Other sites nearby
In addition to the Paul Wild Observatory, there is a history of astronomical research at other sites in the Narrabri area. The Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer, the predecessor of SUSI, was located about 10 km north of Narrabri.
At a site south of Narrabri, near the Bohena Creek, Durham University ran gamma ray telescopes from 1986 to 2000. The Bohena Creek site had previously been used for Sydney University's Giant Air Shower Recorder (SUGAR) for the detection of cosmic rays.