The Sardinia Radio Telescope

The Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) is a recently completed (2011) radio telescope based in Pranu Sanguni, near Sant'Andrea Frius and San Basilio, about 35 km north of Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy).

The 64-m primary reflector has an active surface made of 1008 aluminium panels (smooth to RMS ≤ 65 μm) moved by 1116 actuators. The active surface is essential for observations at high frequencies (23 to 100 GHz). The most important feature of the SRT is, in fact, its extreme frequency agility: it is able to observe from 300 MHz to 100 GHz and its receivers can be easily swapped (up to 20 can, in principle, be installed at the three focal points and can be positioned in a time of between 11 and 190 s).

The SRT in Europe

Receivers: Three receivers have now been installed and are undergoing scientific commissioning:

• Primary focus: dual L-band (1.3-1.8 GHz) and P-band (305-425 MHz) coaxial.
• Gregorian focus: K-band multibeam (18-26 GHz).
• Beam waveguide focus: C-band (5.7-7.7 GHz).

• A dual-band digital filterbank (DFB4) from the Australia Telescope National Facility, capable of handling 1 GHz bandwidth in 2 polarisations.
• A ROACH-board baseband recorder capable of sampling up to 0.5 GHz bandwidth.
• An analogue filterbank able to produce 1024 channels, each of 0.5 MHz bandwidth, in 2 polarisations.

For more detailed information, please visit the project website.