Medicina Radio Observatory
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Photo by Paolo Monti, 1974
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| Organization | National Institute for Astrophysics, Istituto di Radioastronomia di Bologna | ||||
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| Location | Bologna, Italy | ||||
| Coordinates | 44°31′15″N 11°38′49″E / 44.52083°N 11.64694°ECoordinates: 44°31′15″N 11°38′49″E / 44.52083°N 11.64694°E | ||||
| Website | Website | ||||
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| Northern Cross Radio Telescope | cylindrical-parabolic transit radio telescope |
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| 32 m Dish | single-dish steerable radio telescope |
The Medicina Radio Observatory is an astronomical observatory located 30 km from Bologna, Italy. It is operated by the Institute for Radio Astronomy of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) of the government of Italy.
The site includes:
The Northern Cross Radio Telescope (Croce del Nord in Italian) is one of the largest transit radio telescopes in the world. Observations are focused around 408 MHz (UHF band), corresponding to 73.5 cm wavelength. The older receivers of the telescope function with a 2.5 MHz wide frequency band, while the upgraded parts have a 16 MHz bandwidth. The telescope is steerable only in declination, meaning that it can solely observe objects that are culminating on the local celestial meridian. The telescope is T-shaped and consists of:
The telescope can provide 22880 possible theoretical independent beams and has a field of view of 55.47 degrees (East-West) by 1.8 degrees (North-South). The resolution is around 4-5 arcminutes in the North-South direction, and 4 arcminutes in the East-West direction. While less than the resolution of large optical telescopes, the amount of radiation which can be gathered with the Northern Cross is much greater, proportional to the mirror surface of approximately 27400 square meters. Northern Cross represents the largest UHF-band antenna in the Northern hemisphere, with an aperture efficiency of 60%, making it second in the world, after the Arecibo radio telescope. This allows the Northern Cross to identify and measure extremely faint sources, making the telescope is particularly suitable to extragalactic researches.
There are plans upgrade of the East-West arm telescope to a LOFAR SuperStation, due to the good performances of a cylindrical-parabolic antenna in the 100-700 MHz frequency range. Since LOFAR operates in the 120-240 MHz range, some of the sensors on the Northern Cross Radio Telescope, optimized for 408 MHz, will have to be replaced with broadband antennas. This installation will have an effective area much larger than any other remote LOFAR station. If extended to the whole 22000 square meters area of the East-West arm, this single element effective area of 20 standard remote LOFAR stations. The resulting system will provide signification improvement in observation sensitivity.
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