National Facility Operations
| The Australia Telescope is operated as a national research facility for use by Australian and international researchers by the ATNF (Australia Telescope National Facility), CSIRO on behalf of the Australian Government. The major operational programs are summarised below. |
| ATCA | The Australia Telescope Compact Array is an array of six 22-metre diameter radio dishes used for aperture synthesis imaging at frequencies in the range 1.3 - 105 GHz (wavelengths 23.1 - 0.3 cm). The ATCA is located near Narrabri in NSW. Contact: Phil Edwards (Officer-in-Charge) |
| Parkes | The Parkes radio telescope is a 64-metre diameter single dish operating routinely in the frequency range 0.64 - 24 GHz (wavelengths 47 - 1.2 cm). Frequencies outside this range may be available by special arrangement. The telescope is located close to the township of Parkes, NSW. Contact: John Reynolds (Officer-in-Charge) |
| Mopra | The Mopra radio telescope is a 22-metre diameter single dish operating in the frequency range 1.3 - 116 GHz (wavelengths 23 - 0.26 cm). The telescope specialises in single dish spectroscopy in the 1.2 cm and 3mm bands. It is located near Coonabarabran in NSW. Contact: Phil Edwards (Officer-in-Charge) |
| Tidbinbilla | The radio telescopes at Tidbinbilla are operated by the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, part of NASA's Deep Space Network. The Host Country agreement with NASA provides a fraction of the time on the Tidbinbilla DSS43 70-m antenna for use by the Australian astronomical community. The ATNF accepts applications for service observations with the 70-m antenna. The Tidbinbilla DSS43 antenna and the DSS45 (34-m) antenna are also used with the Long Baseline Array and other radio telescopes, for Very Long Baseline Interferometry. Contact: Dave McConnell |
| LBA | The Long Baseline Array comprises the ATNF telescopes at Narrabri (ATCA), Parkes and Mopra, the University of Tasmania telescopes at Hobart and Ceduna, and antennae at Tidbinbilla operated for NASA's Deep Space Network. The LBA correlation is performed at Swinburne University on a software correlator. Contact: Tasso Tzioumis |
| NFS | The National Facility Support group manages access to the ATNF facilities and has the prime responsibility for informing the ATNF user community about telescope availability. The NFS group also manages the ATNF Outreach and Edcuation program Contact: Jessica Chapman |
Last modified 16 January 2008
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