 | |
| Location(s) | Hooghalen,Midden-Drenthe,Drenthe, Netherlands |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 52°54′53″N6°36′12″E / 52.91474°N 6.60334°E /52.91474; 6.60334 |
  Location of Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope | |
 Related media on Commons | |
TheWesterbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) is anaperture synthesisinterferometer built on the site of the former World War II Nazi detention and transitcamp Westerbork, north of the village ofWesterbork,Midden-Drenthe, in the northeasternNetherlands.
The WSRT comprises fourteen 25 m (82 ft) radio telescopes deployed in a linear array arranged on a 2.7 km (1.7 mi) East-West line, of which 10 are in a fixed equidistant position, 2 are nearby on a 300 m (980 ft) rail track, and 2 are located 1 km (0.62 mi) eastwards on another 200 m (660 ft) rail track. It has a similar arrangement to otherradio telescopes such as theOne-Mile Telescope,Australia Telescope Compact Array and theRyle Telescope. ItsEquatorial mount is what sets it apart from most other radio telescopes, most of which have anAltazimuth mount. This makes it specifically useful for specific types of science, like polarized emission research as the detectors maintain a constant orientation on the sky during an observation. Ten of the telescopes are on fixed mountings while the remaining two dishes are movable along tworail tracks. The telescope was completed in 1970 and underwent a major upgrade between 1995 – 2000.[1]
The telescopes in the array can operate at several frequencies between120MHz and8.3GHz with an instantaneous bandwidth of120MHz and 8092-line spectral resolution.[2] The WSRT is often combined with other telescopes around the world to performvery-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations, being part of theEuropean VLBI Network.[3] The telescope is operated byASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy.
WSRT performed a major upgrade in 2013 as part of the APERTIF (APERture Tile In Focus) project, where the current detectors were replaced withfocal-plane arrays.[4] The Telescope was out of operation for the upgrade from 2015 to 2019, which allows a 25x larger field of view. The upgraded telescope is used for large scale surveys of the northern sky, bringing back focus on theHydrogen line for which it was originally designed, but also largepulsar searches and other science.[5]
The WSRT is also an InternationalGNSS Service site.[6]
WSRT observed galaxies in theSpitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey at wavelengths of 18 and 22 cm (7.1 and 8.7 in).[7]
The WSRT site is also hosting one of the two experimentalEMBRACE (Electronic MultiBeam Radio Astronomy ConcEpt)phased array telescopes, part of the Phase 2 of theSquare Kilometre Array (SKA) project.[8]
Media related toWesterbork Synthesis Radio Telescope at Wikimedia Commons