From an office space far, far away
15 March 2013
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CSIRO's ASKAP team has successfully controlled its pathfinder telescope in Western Australia, from its Sydney based Science Operations Centre (SOC) – a distance in excess of 3,400km.
The remote connection, between the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science headquarters in Sydney and the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia where ASKAP is sited, was part of continuing commissioning activities to test the stability of the ASKAP system.
Not only do the tests mark the first time the antennas have been operated fully from outside the MRO or nearby Boolardy Homestead, but they provide insight into the remote science operations and observations that will take place with ASKAP and a national and international research community. Benefits of remote access at this, the commissioning stage, include increased staff safety and efficiency as workers need to spend less time in the remote desert environment.
"Initial fringes were successfully obtained from the new observing space recently built in the SOC and marks a significant step forward in the commissioning process," said ASKAP Project Scientist Lisa Harvey-Smith, "The SOC facilities will continue to provide an invaluable remote platform as commissioning begins to ramp up in earnest."
The SOC comprises four control rooms that can be linked to CSIRO's four telescopes – the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the Parkes 64-m, Mopra, and most recently, ASKAP.
The ASKAP commissioning team will initially use one of the larger observing rooms, with a smart board linked to a similar unit at the MRO site to ensure there is a single source of current information available to engineers and commissioning teams. The two larger rooms can be joined into one large space for group observing sessions such as LBA observing, ASKAP commissioning activities and outreach activities such as CSIRO's 'PULSE@Parkes' outreach project.
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