The 32-m dish, built in 1983, can receive signals in the range 1.4 – 26.5 GHz. It is employed for both interferometric and single-dish observations. In the former case it works with other antennas, located in different European or worldwide countries taking part to the "EVN (European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network) Consortium. The main goal of the consortium is to obtain high resolution data in order to analyse fine details of the radio sources.
Another application of interferometric observations is in
the Geodesy field. The VLBI techniques are able to measure
the distances among the involved antennas with an accuracy
of a few millimetres. This allows the study of the crustal
plates movements with unparalleled precision.
As concerns single-dish activities, at present they mainly
focus on: spectrometry of water and methanol maser
sources, sky surveys, flux variability of compact
extragalactic sources, polarimetric observations of
Galactic regions, planetary studies.
Useful informations, i.e. "Table
of Receivers" available on the antenna
and the "Antenna
User Manual", are reachable following
this link.
Notice: technical details and user's guides for
observers are presented in a dedicated page.
The Medicina radio telescope receivers work in a
“frequency agility” context: receivers and frequencies can
be switched within a few seconds. A new 18-26.5 GHz
dual-horn system has recently been installed.
Two backends are available for single-dish
observations:
• continuum observations are performed via an analog
backend allowing bandwidths as wide as 2 GHz;
• spectroscopic observations can be carried out
using XARCOS, a 4096-channel digital spectrometer enabling
observations in "zoom" mode - i.e. applying different
frequency resolutions to the same band.
ROACH-based backends are being developed and will be
available in a near future.
The Medicina telescope is equipped with the Enhanced
Single-dish Control System (ESCS), a new telescope
operating system. It allows high-speed On-The-Fly
acquisitions and covers all the most popular
single-dish observing modes.
Observing time can be requested following the procedure
described at this link.