Welcome to Ballima, the Tidbinbilla Radio Telescope
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Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex 70-m Radio Telescope (DSS-43) Guide to Observations 34-m Radio Telescope (DSS-34) Guide to Observations |
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The radio telescopes at Tidbinbilla are operated by the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, part of NASA's Deep Space Network. As part of the Host Country agreement with NASA, a fraction of the time on the Tidbinbilla DSS-43 70-m, named Ballima, meaning 'very far away', and DSS-34 34-m antennas is available to the Australian astronomical community. Since January 2003, the Australia Telescope National Facility has accepted applications for service observations with the Ballima 70-m antenna. From the 2007APRS semester onwards, single-dish applications for the DSS-34 34-m antenna have also been accepted, particularly for its 32 GHz band, though with the addition of 7mm receivers on the ATCA (and Mopra), there has been less interest in this capability in recent years.
Ballima (the Tidbinbilla 70-m DSS43 antenna), or one of the 34-m antennas, are also used together with the Long Baseline Array and other radio telescopes, for Very Long Baseline Interferometry.