History of radar for various purposes; on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, the entire planet was mapped at a 30-m resolution. The Jodrell Bank Observatory, an operation of the University of Manchester in Britain, was originally started by Bernard Lovell to be a radar astronomy facility. It initially used a war-surplus GL-II radar system operating at 71 MHz (4.2 m). The first observations were of ionized trails in the Geminids meteor shower during December 1945. While the facility soon evolved to become the third largest radio observatory in the world, some radar astronomy continued. The largest (250-ft or 76-m in diameter) of their
December December 6, peaking around November 9), the Canis-Minorids (December 4 – December 15, peaking around December 10–11), the Coma Berenicids (December 12 to December 23, peaking around December 16), the Delta Cancrids (December 14 to February 14, the main shower from January 1 to January 24, peaking on January 17), the Geminids (December 13–14), the Monocerotids (December 7 to December 20, peaking on December 9. This shower can also start in November), the Phoenicids (November 29 to December 9, with a peak occurring around 5/6 December), the Quadrantids (typically a January shower but can also start in December), the Sigma