ASKAP is a 36-antenna radio interferometer located in the remote Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia, some 800 km north/north-east from Perth. ASKAP dishes are equipped in a state-of-the-art receivers, Phase Array Feeds (PAFs) that allow for instantaneous 30 square degree field of view at 1.4 GHz; each PAF forms up to 36 instantaneous and independent beams. This capability, and the collecting area of approximately 4,000 square degrees make ASKAP particularly suited to fast delivery of large-scale surveys.
ASKAP antennas are 12 meters in diameter, and the
maximum baseline is 6 km. The antennas are non-movable,
which means that in principle the telescope's
configuration does not change.
ASKAP can observe in three frequency bands, from
700 MHz to 1.8 GHz, each with 288 MHz instantaneous
bandwidth.
For more information on ASKAP visit the CSIRO/ATNF website.
Location of the Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory
and the ASKAP telescope
(Image credits: CSIRO).
