Qitai Radio Telescope
| Organization | China National Space Administration |
|---|---|
| Location | Shihezi Village, Banjiegou Town, Qitai County, Xinjiang, China |
| Coordinates | 43°36′4.03″N 89°40′56.99″E / 43.6011194°N 89.6824972°ECoordinates: 43°36′4.03″N 89°40′56.99″E / 43.6011194°N 89.6824972°E[1] |
| Wavelength | Radio |
| Diameter | 110 metres |
The Xingjiang Qitai 110m Radio Telescope (QTT) is a planned radio telescope to be built in Qitai County in Xinjiang, China. Upon completion, it will be the world's largest fully steerable single-dish radio telescope. It is intended to operate at 300 MHz to 117 GHz. The construction of the antenna project is under the leadership of the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.[2][3]
The radio telescope site selection team considered 48 candidate locations throughout Xinjiang. The chosen site for the facility is in the foothills of the Tian Shan mountains, near Shihezi village, Banjiegou Town, about 46 km (straight-line distance) south-south-east of the Qitai county seat (Qitai Town). The mountain ridges surrounding the site are supposed to provide some protection from electromagnetic noise. The authorities propose designating a radio quiet zone (a 10 km by 15 km rectangle, much smaller than the United States National Radio Quiet Zone) around the future facility.[1]
Goals
The main goals of the QTT include imaging of pulsars, stellar formation, and the large-scale radio structure of the universe.[1][3]
Similar fully steerable telescopes
- Green Bank Telescope, the current largest fully steerable parabolic dish wideband radio telescope, of similar capabilities and 110m x 100m elliptical aperture
- Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope
- The three NASA Deep Space Network stations each sport a fully steerable 70m dish telescope, and the counterpart Soviet Deep Space Network likewise uses the comparable 70m aperture RT-70 line
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "QTT Project Proposal". Proceeds of the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory. 2012.
- ↑ "QTT Specification". QTT International Advisory Workshop. Retrieved 2013-04-08.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Na, Wang (May 2013). QiTai Radio Telescope. The Second China-U.S. Workshop on Radio Astronomy Science and Technology. Retrieved 11 July 2013.