The telescope has
8 dishes in all, 4 are fixed and 4 are mounted on rails so they can move around to vary
the reception parameters. Anyone travelling down the A603 from Cambridge will not fail to see at least
one of them, or the fixed one-mile telescope array slightly further to the south. On the day I
placed the cache the rail mounted scopes were all huddled up at the furthest end of the track,
presumably to keep their static counterpart company !
There are several approaches to the cache site, all fairly short walks of approximately one hour.
Haslingfield is to the south and Grantchester or Barton to the north.
The cache itself is a small ammo box with Geocaching.com sticker and is hidden in a suitable location
slightly to the north of the telescope track. The path along the north side of the track is a
permissive path, so is not shown on the OS map as a right of way - please respect this and stick to
the track, follow the country code etc etc. Once at the cache site you should have no problems in
locating the cache as it's very much a 'traditional' site I think. Do not cut across the field, there
are crops growing and the path is around the outside - see the small maps posted where you enter the
field at either end. The terrain is typical british countryside - muddy field, grass etc but is just about do-able with a buggy if you're determined.
Further details (most of which I have to admit to not understanding !) on this piece of equipment, and
other
Astronomical activities in Cambridge are available on
this site.
UPDATE - this site will be revisited later in the year, for now a sister cache has been placed - 'Up Scope Too'