Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescoop
Coordinates: 52 ° 54 ′ 53.1 ″ N , 6 ° 36 ′ 12 ″ E
The Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescoop ( WSRT ), English Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope , is a radio astronomical interferometer north of Westerbork , in the northeastern Netherlands .
The interferometer consists of 14 antennas with a diameter of 25 meters, which are positioned on a 2.7 km long east-west line. Ten of the telescopes are stationary, while the remaining 4 can be moved on rails. It is similar in structure to other radio telescopes , such as the One-Mile Telescope , Australia Telescope Compact Array and the Ryle Telescope , but differs from them in the equatorial mount . This means that it can be used particularly well for polarization measurements, as the detector has a fixed orientation to the sky during observation. The telescope was completed in 1970 and significantly upgraded between 1995–2000. Another upgrade began in 2013, when the detectors were replaced by an array in order to observe a region of the sky 25 times larger at the same time. Observations in the frequency range from 120 MHz to 8.3 GHz are possible with the telescope. The telescope is often combined with telescopes from other parts of the world to form a Very Long Baseline Interferometry with increased angular resolution and is part of the European VLBI Network . The telescope is operated by ASTRON , the Netherlands Society for Radio Astronomy.