The 22-metre Mopra Radio Telescope, located near

Coonabarabran, New South Wales Coonabarabran is a town in Warrumbungle Shire that sits on the divide between the Central West and North West Slopes regions of New South Wales, Australia. At the 2016 census, the town had a population of 2,537, Material was copied from this s ...

, is part of the

Australia Telescope National Facility The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)'s radio astronomy observatories are collectively known as the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF), with the facility supporting Australia's research in radio astron ...

, operated by CSIRO. The name hails from the location of the facility close to Mopra Rock a geological formation overlooking the telescope. It is also close to the Siding Spring optical observatory in the Warrumbungle National Park. For use as a single-dish, it has niche equipment allowing large bandwidths to be observed at millimeter-wavelengths. Being a part of the Australia Telescope, it is often used in conjunction with other AT antennas (e.g., the

Australia Telescope Compact Array The Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) is a radio telescope operated by CSIRO at the Paul Wild Observatory, twenty five kilometres (16 mi) west of the town of Narrabri in New South Wales, Australia. Its opening ceremony took place on ...

Narrabri Narrabri ( ) is a locality and seat of Narrabri Shire local government area in the North West Slopes, New South Wales, Australia on the Namoi River, northwest of Sydney. It sits on the junction of the Kamilaroi Highway and the Newell Highw ...

, and the 64-metre

Parkes Parkes may refer to: * Sir Henry Parkes (1815–1896), Australian politician, one of the earliest and most prominent advocates for Australian federation Named for Henry Parkes * Parkes, New South Wales, a regional town * Parkes Observatory, a radi ...

dish) to form a

Very Long Baseline Interferometry Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. In VLBI a signal from an astronomical radio source, such as a quasar, is collected at multiple radio telescopes on Earth or in space. T ...

(VLBI) array. Commissioned in 2006 was the Mopra Spectrometer (MOPS) "backend" which has a maximum instantaneous bandwidth of 8 GHz, it also has special zoom-modes which allow high resolution studies of up to 16 138 MHz bands over any 8 GHz. It is especially tuned to the high-performance millimeter-wavelength receivers. The main specialty of the instrument is the response of the 3-mm receiver which nominally can observe between 75–115 GHz. New downconversion equipment fine-tuned the 3-mm system while it also received a 12-mm receiver package early-2006. Until 2006, the telescope was operated on-site by visiting users. The default mode shifted to remote operation from the ATCA, Narrabri in the winter of 2006. On January 13, 2013, the telescope was threatened by the Coonabarabran bushfire but survived with only the on-site building suffering significant damage. On the 27 May 2014, ''The Age'' newspaper reported that the telescope would be closed by CSIRO as a result of the 2014 Federal Budget. On 16 September 2015, A group of scientists successfully used crowdfunding to raise $65,000 to temporarily delay the telescope's closure.

References

{{Portal bar, New South Wales, Australia, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Education, Science Radio telescopes Astronomical observatories in New South Wales

See also

References