APT The Asia-Pacific Telescope, an organisation being set up by ATNF and other Asian/Pacific observatories to promote collaboration in VLBI.
ARC The Australian Research Council, which funds university research in Australia
AT The Australia Telescope, consisting of the six-element Compact Array (CA) at Narrabri, NSW, the 64 metre antenna at Parkes, NSW, and the 22 m antenna at Mopra, NSW.
ATNF The Australia Telescope National Facility, a Division of CSIRO and the host institution of the AT.
AT Steering Committee A committee of leading Australian and overseas technical and scientific experts who advise the Director of the ATNF, and are appointed by the Minister for Science.
ATUC The AT User Committee, a body of about 20 representatives of the Australian astronomical community, who advise the Director of the ATNF.
CA The Compact Array of the AT, consisting of a line of six 22 m antennas near Narrabri, NSW.
Centaurus A A key target for southern radio astronomy, Centaurus A is the nearest active galaxy, probably with a black hole at its centre, and is visible only from the Southern Hemisphere.
Ceduna A 30 m antenna offered by Telstra to the radio astronomy community (see attachment C).
CO Carbon Monoxide, a key component of the interstellar medium, is widely studied at 3 mm to investigate star formation processes.
ESA The European Space Agency
GaAs MMIC Gallium arsenide monolithic microwave integrated circuit, a key technology for building our mm receivers, particularly for the focal-plane array (FPA)
ISAS Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science - the Japanese Space Agency
FPA Focal-plane array, which has the potential to increase the speed of a telescope by an order of magnitude. Construction of a 3 mm FPA has been achieved by very few groups overseas.
LMC Large Magellanic Cloud. The LMC is the nearest galaxy to our own, and is a key target for the AT. It is visible only from the Southern Hemisphere.
Mopra The 22 m AT antenna at Mopra, near Coonabarabran, NSW.
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the US space agency.
Narrabri The site of the AT Compact Array in Northern NSW.
NOAA The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Parkes The site of the AT 64 m antenna in central NSW.
Radioastron The Russian VLBI spacecraft to be launched in 1997.
Space VLBI A technique whereby one antenna is carried on a spacecraft, thereby increasing the angular resolution available to radio astronomy by an order of magnitude. Two space VLBI missions are planned: VSOP by Japan and Radioastron by Russia.
Telstra An Australian telecommunications company.
Tidbinbilla NASA's tracking station located near Canberra, managed by the Australian Space Office for NASA, and part of NASA's Deep Space Network.
VLBI Very Long Baseline Interferometry, a technique where signals from widely separated antennas are correlated to provide very high spatial resolution images.
VSOP The Japanese VLBI Spacecraft to be launched in 1996.
1 cm band The 12-25 GHz band.
3 mm band The 85-115 GHz band.