Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Australia Telescope Operated by CSIRO as a National Facility since 1990 As a National Facility, the Australia Telescope provides world-class observing facilities in radio astronomy for astronomers at Australian and overseas institutions.

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Facilities Parkes –64m diameter single dish –Operates over many bands in GHz –including the 13-beam 21cm receiver Compact Array (Narrabri) –Aperture synthesis array of 6 22m dishes, 6km baseline –1.2 – 1.7, 2.2 – 2.6, 4.4 – 6.7, 8.0 – 9.2 GHz –16 – 25 and 84 – 106 GHz Mopra (Coonabarabran) –22m single dish –1.2 – 1.7, 2.2 – 2.6, 4.4 – 6.7, 8.0 – 9.2 GHz – GHz

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Facilities Long Baseline Array (LBA) –Parkes, Mopra, ATCA –Hobart & Ceduna (U Tasmania) –Tidbinbilla (NASA Deep Space Network) –offshore facilites Headquarters, LBA correlator and engineering development in Marsfield

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Past decade - Instrumentation Parkes –13-beam 21cm receiver –8GHz receiver and surface upgrade to 54m –Wideband digital correlator –10/50cm receiver ATCA –214m North Spur –12/3.5mm upgrade Mopra –600 MHz digital spectrometer

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Past decade - Science Pulsar surveys –~1000 pulsars discovered –Double pulsar HI surveys –SGPS –HIPASS Deep radio continuum –Hubble/Chandra deep fields –20GHz ATCA survey

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Usage - ATCA Long Baseline Array (LBA)

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Usage - Parkes

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 User Profile Compact ArrayParkes

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Publications

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Student training ATNF-affiliated PhD students –Joint University-ATNF supervision –Free accommodation at observatories –Support for page charges and one overseas trip –Top-up scholarships available via CSIRO (~2 per year)

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Student training

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 ATNF Developments The Big Five New Technology Demonstrator (NTD) –Part of SKA Roadmap Compact Array Broadband Backend (CABB) –512MHz Digital Filter Bank (DFB) operational –2GHz Mopra by June 2005 ATCA by Jun 07 »Priority of broadband L/S & C/X upgrade?

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 ATNF Developments The Big Five (continued) Parkes Methanol Multibeam GHz (w/Jodrell Bank) –Preliminary mechanical design complete –Oct 2005 installation ATCA 7mm system –Construction cost A$6.4M » 50:50 cost sharing –Commissioning Q (w/CABB: Q2 2007)

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 ATNF Developments The Big Five (continued) eVLBI –All stations network-ready –512MB/s achieved »Huygens demo »31s photon-to-fringe –Network connections »July 2005?

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Future Strategic Directions ATCA –Maximise pre-ALMA window-of-opportunity Parkes –Major survey programs Mileura –xNTD operations Australasian LBA –eVLBI network (PKS/ATCA/Hobart/Ceduna/Mileura/NZ) ATNF –SKA development

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 ATNF Issues Future of Mopra Extent of engagement in Virtual Observatory Managing 3 sites –Investment in new technology: NBR/PKS v SKA Remote/queue observing Major new initiatives –Extend N Narrabri? –20GHz Multibeam/FPA Parkes?

Decadal Plan UNSW, 17 Dec 2004 Future MOPS 7mm CABB 6GHz m’beam eVLBI 20GHz M’beam?NTD xNTD Narrabri/MopraParkes Mileura Ext N Spur? FPA? Pulsar DFB