CSIRO's ASKAP Radio Telescope

ASKAP is designed to be a high speed survey instrument with high dynamic range. This requires an extremely wide field-of-view interferometer with Phased Array Feeds (PAFs) consisting of 188 elements in each of two polarisations as the focal plane detectors.

The specification for ASKAP is:

• A total collecting area of approximately 4,000 square metres, from 36 antennas each 12 metres in diameter
• System temperature less than 50 K
• Frequency range from 700 MHz to 1.8 GHz
• 300 MHz instantaneous bandwidth
• 36 independent beams, each of about 1 square degree, yield overlapping to a 30 square degree field-of-view at 1.4 GHz
• Maximum baseline of approximately 6 km
• Full cross-correlation of all antennas
• Possible remote array station capability located in NSW, approximately 3,000 km from the core site.

Take a Look at ASKAP

• What does ASKAP look like right now? See the latest webcam images of ASKAP from the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory
• Take in an incredible timelapse of the ASKAP antennas standing proudly at the MRO
• Experience the ASKAP Opening Ceremony in this stunning video report [19MB .mp4]
• Watch an animation of ASKAP by Swinburne Astronomy Productions [42MB .mov]
• ASKAP is on Google Maps: zoom in to see the antennas and other infrastructure
• Read the timeline for construction of ASKAP and its supporting infrastructure

Latest News

Hardware correlator testing underway June 2013: The ASKAP team will soon travel out to the MRO to test remote commissioning of the hardware correlator on site with ASKAP antennas.

Latest ASKAP Update now available May 2013: The latest edition of the ASKAP Update is now available for download.

Selavy supports source finding for ASKAP SSTs May 2013: The ASKAP Computing team has created a test source-finder to simulate and analyse expected data sets from ASKAP.

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