The Warkworth

Warkworth, New Zealand

Warkworth is a town in the upper North Island of New Zealand, within the Rodney District and lying at the far north of the Auckland Region but just south of the Northland Region...

 12m Radio Telescope
is located just south of Warkworth off SH1 about 50 km north of Auckland

Auckland

The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

.

Radio Telescope

The Warkworth 12m Radio Telescope is operated by the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Space Research, AUT University. It was constructed in 2008

Technical information

12m diameter antenna designed and constructed by COBHAM Satcom, Patriot Products division.

Antenna type : Fully steerable dual shaped Cassegrain

Cassegrain reflector

The Cassegrain reflector is a combination of a primary concave mirror and a secondary convex mirror, often used in optical telescopes and radio antennas....

Main dish Diam : 12.1 m
Secondary Refl Diam : 1.8m
Focal Length : 4.538 m
Surface precision : 0.35 mm (RMS)
Pointing accuracy : 18"
Wavelength : S-Band

S band

The S band is defined by an IEEE standard for radio waves with frequencies that range from 2 to 4 GHz, crossing the conventional boundary between UHF and SHF at 3.0 GHz. It is part of the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum...

 and X-Band
Mount : alt-azimuth
Slewing rates : (5 deg/s in azimuth and 1.25 deg/s in elevation)
Acceleration : (1.3 deg/s/s)

Dual polarization S and X-band feeds from COBHAM with room temperature receivers, the receiver systems cover 2.2 to 2.4 GHz at S-band and 8.1 to 9.1 GHz at X-band.

Research Activity

In 2010 this dish was used for several Very Long Baseline Interferometry

Very Long Baseline Interferometry

Very Long Baseline Interferometry is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. It allows observations of an object that are made simultaneously by many telescopes to be combined, emulating a telescope with a size equal to the maximum separation between the telescopes.Data...

 observations as part of the Australian Long Baseline Array.

It will also from 2011 be part of the International VLBI Service for Geodesy

Geodesy

Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal...

 and Astrometry

Astrometry

Astrometry is the branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. The information obtained by astrometric measurements provides information on the kinematics and physical origin of our Solar System and our Galaxy, the Milky...

. As such, it is also co-located with a LINZ

Land Information New Zealand

Land Information New Zealand is a New Zealand government agency. The current Chief Executive is Colin MacDonald and the current Minister of Land Information is Maurice Williamson.- Nature and scope of functions :...

/GeoNet

GNS Science

GNS Science is a New Zealand Crown Research Institute. It focuses on geology, geophysics , and nuclear science ....

 'PositioNZ' GNSS  station to help future inclusion in the definition of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF).