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For over two decades, the flagship receiver on the Parkes 64m
radiotelescope, Murriyang, was the 13-beam multi-beam receiver which
enabled observations in the 20-cm wavelength band. Over its lifetime it produced
high-impact science in both Galactic (pulsars, Galactic structure) and
extragalactic (fast radio bursts, external galaxies) research.
The successor to the 20cm multi-beam receiver, funded in part by an
Australian Research Council Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant,
is a cryogenically cooled Phased Array Feed (cryo-PAF). Compared with
the multi-beam receiver, the cryoPAF will provide significant
improvement in six key areas: (1) improved receiver noise; (2) wider
field of view; (3) full ("Nyquist") sampling of the focal plane; (4) wide
front-end bandwidth; (5) greater aperture efficiency; and (6) reduced
spectral baseline ripple. Taken together, these improvements represent a
significant increase in survey speed (the time it takes to survey a
portion of the sky).
The image above shows the cryoPAF at the Parkes observatory last week for
its first on-ground tests. This week will see a trial installation in the focus cabin
before the cryoPAF returns to Sydney for further work, before returning to
Parkes around next April for its full installation.
(Image credit: Tricia Trim)
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