“Pack your bags kids, we’re moving to Chile!”
It’s not a phrase most fathers will ever use, however, Sean Dougherty and his family are actually embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.
The opportunity comes after managing the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in Kaleden, B.C. for the past 20 years.
Tucked away off Highway 97, the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory has been operating since the 1950's when an extensive cross-country search for a site to house Canada’s largest radio telescope found the White Lake Basin, 22 kilometres southwest of Penticton.
The observatory is now home to a number of different telescopes, but is best known for the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), which is Canada’s largest telescope and is used to collect radio waves from distant galaxies.
After managing the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, Doughtery left the Okanagan this week for his new job in Chile, where he will be the director of the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory.
The ALMA Observatory is situated 5,000 metres above sea level in Chile's Atacama Desert and is a collaborative project between international partners from Europe, North America and East Asia.
It is the largest ground-based astronomical project on earth and is used to study star formation, molecular clouds and some of the furthest galaxies in the universe.
Doughtery will be managing the observatory comprised of 66 high-precision antennas, spread over a distance of up to 16 km and operated by almost 300 staff, most of which are Chilean.
“The position of director for Chile’s ALMA Observatory came open so I threw my hat in the ring and behold, they asked me to take the job a few months later,” explained Doughtery while waiting at the airport.
“It’s an opportunity that may only happen once in a lifetime so I gladly accepted.”
Doughtery earned his degree in physics from the University of Nottingham before moving to Calgary where he earned a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Calgary.
His wife and their two children, aged 16 and 13, will be joining him in April for the full length of the five-year contract.
While the whole family is excited to embark on the journey, Doughtery says the family's home is in the Okanagan and it will be greatly missed.
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