KAT-7 is a

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...

situated in the

Meerkat National Park Meerkat National Park is a large National Park in the Northern Cape, South Africa, that encompasses the Square Kilometre Array, MeerKAT and HERA telescopes. To ensure long term viability of the Karoo site for the MeerKAT and the SKA, and ...

, in the

Northern Cape The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi T ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. Part of the

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ext ...

Array Telescope project, it is the precursor engineering test bed to the larger

MeerKAT MeerKAT, originally the Karoo Array Telescope, is a radio telescope consisting of 64 antennas in the Meerkat National Park, in the Northern Cape of South Africa. In 2003, South Africa submitted an expression of interest to host the Square Kilom ...

telescope, but it has become a science instrument in its own right. The construction was completed in 2011 and commissioned in 2012. It also served as a technology demonstrator for

's bid to host the

Square Kilometre Array The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is an intergovernmental international radio telescope project being built in Australia (low-frequency) and South Africa (mid-frequency). The combining infrastructure, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKA ...

. KAT-7 is the first Radio telescope to be built with a composite reflector and uses a stirling pump for 75 K cryogenic cooling. The telescope was built to test various system for the MeerKAT array, from the

ROACH Roach may refer to: Animals * Cockroach, various insect species of the order Blattodea * Common roach (''Rutilus rutilus''), a fresh and brackish water fish of the family Cyprinidae ** ''Rutilus'' or roaches, a genus of fishes * California roach ...

correlators designed and manufactured in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, now used by various telescopes internationally, to composite construction techniques.

Technical specifications

KAT-7 consist of 7 dishes of 12 metres in diameter, each a prime focus

reflecting telescope A reflecting telescope (also called a reflector) is a telescope that uses a single or a combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century by Isaac Newton as an alternati ...

Performance

In April 2010 four of the seven dishes were linked together as an integrated system to produce its first interferometric image of an astronomical object. In Dec 2010, there was a successful detection of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) fringes between the

Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory The Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) is a radio astronomy observatory, located in a natural bowl of hills at Hartebeesthoek just south of the Magaliesberg mountain range, Gauteng, South Africa, about 50 km west of Johannes ...

's 26 m dish and one of the KAT-7 dishes.First HartRAO-KAT-7 VLBI fringes signal new capability

References

External links

SKA South Africa

eXperimental Development Model (XDM) at Hartebeeshoek
{{radio-astronomy Astronomical observatories in South Africa Buildings and structures in the Northern Cape Karoo Astronomy protected areas of South Africa Square Kilometre Array

Technical specifications

Performance

See also

References

External links