WSRT

The WSRT is a radio interferometer with 14 telescopes each 25-m in diameter, giving a total collecting area equivalent to a 93-m single dish. It is amongst the most sensitive radio telescopes in the world and well-established as the premier instrument for neutral hydrogen studies of nearby galaxies. The telescope baseline lengths range between 36 metres and 2.8 km, giving a resolution of 14" at 1.4 GHz.

The WSRT has recently been augmented with 115-180 MHz receivers (called LFFEs), and with a separately mountable receiver for 6 GHz (5 cm) spectroscopy. Thus, there is now full frequency agility within a suite of nine dual polarisation wideband decimetre and centimetre receivers, spanning the range from 115 to 8700 MHz. The instantaneous tuneable bandwidth of up to 160 MHz is processed by a highly flexible half-million channel correlator. Re-circulation provides exquisite spectral resolution - finer than 100 Hz across the entire band.