Australia Telescope Compact Array

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Image:ATCA Radio Telescope Narrabri 2005 12 21.jpg

The Australia Telescope Compact Array is a radio telescope at the Paul Wild Observatory, twenty five kilometres west of the town of Narrabri in Australia.

The telescope is an array of six identical twenty two meter diameter dishes, which commonly operate in aperture synthesis mode to produce radio images. Five of the dishes can be moved along a three kilometer railway track. The sixth antenna is situated three kilometers west of the end of the main track. Each dish weighs about 270 tonnes.

The compact array is a part of the Australia Telescope National Facility network of radio telescopes. The array is frequently operated together with the sixty four meter dish at the Parkes Observatory and a single dish at Mopra (near Coonabarabran), to form a very long baseline interferometry array.


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