Everything about The Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope totally explained
The
Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (
MOST) is a
radio telescope operating at 843 MHz. It is operated by the School of Physics of the
University of Sydney. The telescope is located near the
Molonglo River near
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, and was constructed by modification of the East-West arm of the former
Molonglo Cross Telescope, a larger version of the
Mills Cross Telescope.
The MOST consists of two cylindrical
paraboloids, 778m x 12m, separated by 15m and aligned East-West. A line feed system of 7744 circular dipoles collects the signal and feeds 176 preamplifiers and 88 IF amplifiers. The telescope is steered by mechanical rotation of the cylindrical paraboloids about their long axis, and by phasing the feed elements along the arms. The resulting `alt-alt' system can follow a field for +/- 6 hours (necessary for a complete
aperture synthesis with an East-West array) only if the field is south of declination -30 degrees. For fields near this limit the signal-to-noise ratio is lower for the first and last hour or so due to the lower gain of the system at large 'meridian distance' angles.
Molonglo Cross Telescope
The
Molonglo Cross Telescope was a 408 MHz
radio telescope built by
Bernard Y. Mills and collaborators and operated by the
University of Sydney. The telescope consisted of a North-South arm and an East-West arm in a cross shape. Each arm was approximately one mile in length. It was used for a survey of the Southern sky with a resolution of 2.8 arcmin. Much pioneering radio astronomy was done with this telescope. The East-West arm was split into 88 individual elements to form the current Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope.
MOST Current work
Currently, the telescope's main research project is the
Sydney University Molonglo Sky Survey (SUMSS), a sensitive radio imaging survey of the southern sky at 843 MHz with similar resolution and sensitivity to the northern
NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS). SUMSS is now almost complete, and digital images and a source catalogue are available online.
Square Kilometer Array development
MOST is being used to develop technology for the Australian candidate site of the
Square Kilometer Array telescope. Since 2003 work has proceeded on the SKA Molonglo Prototype (SKAMP) which has included fitting new wide-band feeds, low-noise amplifiers, digital filterbanks and correlator, in order to demonstrate 300-1420 MHz continuous frequency coverage and multibeam mode operation. The new correlator is a 96 input continuum correlator using
Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chips.
This effort is a collaboration between the
Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF), the Australian
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Information and Communications Technology Centre, and the University of Sydney.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope'.
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