Sardinia Radio Telescope

The Sardinia Radio Telescope is a large, fully steerable radio telescope currently being completed near San Basilio, province of Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy. It is a collaboration among the Istituto di Radioastronomia di Bologna, the Cagliari Astronomy Observatory (Cagliari) and the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory (Florence). It is expected to be complete in 2011.

The main technical points are:

• A 64 meter primary mirror with a 7.9 meter secondary;
• A Gregorian configuration with shaped surfaces
• An active surface: Primary mirror adjustable with 1116 actuators;
• 0.3-115 GHz continuous frequency coverage
• Three main focal points: Primary, Gregorian, and Beam Wave Guide
• Primary surface accuracy: ≈150 μm RMS
• Maximum antenna efficiency: ≈60 %
• Pointing accuracy (RMS): 2-5 arcsec

References

• Gavril Grueff, Giovanni Alvito, Roberto Ambrosini, Pietro Bolli, Andrea Maccaferri, Giuseppe Maccaferri, and Marco Morsiani (2004-10-11). "Sardinia Radio Telescope: the new Italian project". Proceedings of the SPIE (SPIE) 5489 (773): 773. doi:10.1117/12.550332. http://link.aip.org/link/?PSISDG/5489/773/1. 
• Cortes-Medellin, G. (2002). "The 64 m Sardinia radio telescope optics design". Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium, 2002. IEEE. 4. pp. 126–139. doi:10.1109/APS.2002.1016944. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=1016944. 

External links

• "Sardinia Radio Telescope". http://www.srt.inaf.it.  Home page of the telescope.
• "Sardinia Radio Telescope: Project Status". July 2007. http://www.astro.caltech.edu/USNC-URSI-J/Ottawa_presentations/New_Telescopes_and_Observations/URSI641_Navarrini.pdf. Retrieved 2008-10-23.