The Hitachi and Takahagi 32 m radio telescopes: Upgrade of the antennas from satellite communication to radio astronomy

• Published in: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan Vol. 68; no. 5
• Main Authors: Yonekura, Yoshinori, Saito, Yu, Sugiyama, Koichiro, Soon, Kang Lou, Momose, Munetake, Yokosawa, Masayoshi, Ogawa, Hideo, Kimura, Kimihiro, Abe, Yasuhiro, Nishimura, Atsushi, Hasegawa, Yutaka, Fujisawa, Kenta, Ohyama, Tomoaki, Kono, Yusuke, Miyamoto, Yusuke, Sawada-Satoh, Satoko, Kobayashi, Hideyuki, Kawaguchi, Noriyuki, Honma, Mareki, Shibata, Katsunori M., Sato, Katsuhisa, Ueno, Yuji, Jike, Takaaki, Tamura, Yoshiaki, Hirota, Tomoya, Miyazaki, Atsushi, Niinuma, Kotaro, Sorai, Kazuo, Takaba, Hiroshi, Hachisuka, Kazuya, Kondo, Tetsuro, Sekido, Mamoru, Murata, Yasuhiro, Nakai, Naomasa, Omodaka, Toshihiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 01.10.2016
• Subjects: radio continuum: general; radio lines: general; instrumentation: detectors; masers; instrumentation: interferometers
• ISSN: 0004-6264; 2053-051X
• DOI: 10.1093/pasj/psw045

Abstract The Hitachi and Takahagi 32 m radio telescopes (former satellite communication antennas) were so upgraded as to work at 6, 8, and 22 GHz. We developed the receiver systems, IF systems, back-end systems (including samplers and recorders), and reference systems. We measured the performance of the antennas. The system temperature including the atmosphere toward the zenith, $T_{\rm sys}^{\ast }$ , is measured to be ∼30–40 K for 6 GHz and ∼25–35 K for 8 GHz. $T_{\rm sys}^{\ast }$ for 22 GHz is measured to be ∼40–100 K in winter and ∼150–500 K in summer seasons, respectively. The aperture efficiency is 55%–75% for Hitachi at 6 GHz and 8 GHz, and 55%–65% for Takahagi at 8 GHz. The beam sizes at 6 GHz and 8 GHz are ∼4 ${^{\circ}_{.}}$ 6 and ∼3 ${^{\circ}_{.}}$ 8, respectively. The side-lobe level is less than 3%–4% at 6 and 8 GHz. Pointing accuracy was measured to be better than ∼0 ${^{\circ}_{.}}$ 3 for Hitachi and ∼0 ${^{\circ}_{.}}$ 6 for Takahagi. We succeeded in VLBI observations in 2010 August, indicating good performance of the antenna. We started single-dish monitoring observations of 6.7 GHz methanol maser sources in 2012 December, and found several new sources showing short-term periodic variation of the flux density.