Purchase telescope time from our Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) to complement your survey or follow up your favourite repeating fast radio bursts, pulsars, and high energy tranisents.

At CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, we have three telescopes with time available for purchase. Each telescope has different capabilities and we’re happy to help you decide which telescope best suits your needs.

Contact us for more information:

Included with telescope time purchases

We are committed to ensuring you get reliable, valuable research data from our facilities. As part of working with us, you’ll also have access to:

• Multiple receiver options or configurations depending on telescope selection
• Experienced ATNF operator to schedule your time
• Securely stored data products for your sole access

Contact us directly via Gemma Anderson so we can discuss your needs and how we may best meet them.

Our telescopes

Australia Telescope Compact Array

Our Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) is a 6-dish array that can provide rapid and sensitive radio detections of high-energy and optical transients. The new ATCA BIGCAT correlator operates between 1 – 100 GHz, with an unprecedented 8 GHz bandwidth above 4 GHz. This enables ATCA to track the fast outflowing material from transients and provide high-frequency dynamic range imaging of extended astronomical objects like supernova remnants.  

Use radio observations from ATCA to:

• Probe the outflows from Fast X-ray Transients (FXTs) to learn how they relate to explosive transient events, for example: A fast X-ray transient from a weak relativistic jet associated with a type Ic-BL supernova  
• Add ATCA to your Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) network to study the core shift in AGN jets, for example: Measuring the Core Shift Effect in AGN Jets with the Extended Korean VLBI Network  
• Perform ATCA HI observations of TeV targets and cosmic ray accelerators to search for the source of interstellar protons, for example: A Detailed Study of the Interstellar Protons toward the TeV γ-Ray SNR RX J0852.0–4622 (G266.2–1.2, Vela Jr.): The Third Case of the γ-Ray and ISM Spatial Correspondence  
• Study the outflows from gamma-ray bursts in the early Universe, for example: Soft X-ray prompt emission from the high-redshift gamma-ray burst EP240315a  
• Detect the radio counterpart from extreme transients discovered at optical wavelengths, for example: The Most Luminous Known Fast Blue Optical Transient AT 2024wpp: Unprecedented Evolution and Properties in the X-Rays and Radio  
• Explore the magnetic structures within pulsar wind nebula and supernova remnants using ATCA’s high frequency, full polarisation capabilities, for example: Radio Study of Vela X Cocoon  

Murriyang, our Parkes radio telescope

Murriyang, our Parkes radio telescope is a single, 64m-wide dish in regional NSW, Australia. The telescope offers observers two receiver systems that are extremely powerful for both targeted observations and wide-field surveys. 

• The Ultra-Wideband Low (UWL) is a single-pixel receiver with excellent sensitivity across its broad frequency band from 700 MHz to 4 GHz. 
• The cryogenically cooled phased array feed (cryoPAF) is a survey instrument offering a field of view of 2 squared degrees and covering frequencies from 700 MHz to 2 GHz.  

Use radio observations from Murriyang to:

• Explore the dynamic environments of repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) through wide-band polarisation monitoring, for example:  
  • A sudden change and recovery in the magnetic environment around a repeating fast radio burst  
  • Magnetic field reversal in the turbulent environment around a repeating fast radio burst  
  • A fast radio burst cyclone in technicolour: evidence of plasma lensing  
• Monitoring of long period transients and pulsars to understand their evolution, for example: Slow and steady: long-term evolution of the 76-s pulsar J0901-4046  
• Study the extreme magnetic environments of magnetars, for example: Linear to circular conversion in the polarized radio emission of a magnetar 
• Discovery of radio pulsars hidden deeply in the Galactic plane, for example Discovery of Two Highly Scattered Pulsars from Image-based Circular Polarization Searches with the Australian SKA Pathfinder  
• Search for radio pulsations from unidentified TeV sources, for example: Searching Radio Pulsars for Fourteen Unidentified Very-high-energy Sources

Mopra radio telescope

Our Mopra radio telescope is a single, 22m-dish in regional NSW, Australia. Mopra can perform rapid, single dish observations between 16 – 116 GHz, which can target molecular lines and explore the shocked environments surrounding TeV sources.  

Use radio observations from Mopra to:

• Discover shocked molecular clouds surrounding supernova remnants, for example: Discovery of Shocked Molecular Clouds Associated with the Shell-type Supernova Remnant RX J0046.5−7308 in the Small Magellanic Cloud  
• Add Mopra (and ATCA) to your Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) network to study jets on Parsec scales, for example: Discovery of Limb Brightening in the Parsec-scale Jet of NGC 315 through Global Very Long Baseline Interferometry Observations and Its Implications for Jet Model  
• Perform molecular line surveys of pulsar wind nebulae associated with TeV emission, for example: ISM gas studies towards the TeV PWN HESS J1825−137 and northern region 
• Study the molecular lines surrounding supernova remnants to explore the emission mechanism of associated TeV sources, for example: A 7mm line survey of the shocked and disrupted molecular gas towards the W28 field TeV gamma-ray sources 
• Perform Galactic Plane surveys of molecular lines, for example: The Mopra Southern Galactic Plane CO Survey – data release 4– complete survey

Contact us

If you are interested in purchasing telescope time with CSIRO’s Australia Telescope National Facility, or would like more information, please email us directly via Gemma Anderson.