Last week saw the installation of a new Ultra-wide-band receiver on
the Parkes telescope, with a crew from Marsfield accompanying the receiver
to Parkes to help local staff install and commission it. Fortunately, the
day scheduled for the receiver installation was calm and clear:
wind and rain can play havoc with the process of hoisting
the receiver up to the focus cabin. The $2.5 million instrument was developed by
CSIRO and a consortium of Australian universities led by Swinburne
University of Technology, with funding from the Australian Research
Council, Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy and the
Chinese Academy of Sciences. Testing and commissioning of
the receiver is now underway (Picture credit: John Sarkissian).
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