SRT
The Istituto di Radioastronomia in collaboration with the observatories of Cagliari and Florence is currently constructing the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) in the location of San Basilio (about 35 km north of Cagliari, Sardinia). Start of operation will be in 2010, i.e. during the course of FP7.
The SRT will be among the largest five fully steerable single-dish radio telescopes in Europe and the largest one with an active primary surface (world-wide second only to the NRAO 110-m GBT). Because of the excellent precision of its primary mirror, the SRT will show its true strengths at high-frequencies (above 20 GHz). Consequently, one of the first-light instruments will be a new 7-feed array for observations between 18 and 26 GHz, unique at this frequency in Europe. The global concept of single-dish observing with the Italian radio telescopes foresees the long-term monitoring, the large-scale surveying or the rapidly scheduled observations with the smaller 32-m telescopes, while the new 64-m SRT would mainly be used for dedicated follow-up work, in particular at high frequencies at which it will be at its most impressive.
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