Green Bank Telescope - Engineering Priorities

Engineering Priorities

The capabilities of all radio telescopes are determined by the surface accuracy of the telescope itself and the instrumentation developed by the engineering staff. The NRAO GBT engineering staff priorities are set based on the advice of science user's committee. The priorities set by this committee develop in response to recent discoveries by the astronomical community and based on theoretical predictions published in astronomical journals. The current (December 2012) science priorities include increasing the sensitivity for pulsar observations at high frequencies (> 10 GHz) to allow observations near the galactic center, much higher spectrometer spectral resolution and bandwidth, to improve the efficiency of detection of molecular lines, and bolometer arrays, allowing more sensitive continuum observations. An additional priority is improving the capabilities for mapping large regions of the sky, to enable studies of the chemical processes in our Galaxy. Recently an array receiver was installed for observations in the frequency range 18 to 26.5 GHz, where several biologically significant molecules are seen by their molecular line emission. These molecules include water, ammonia, methanol, and formic acid.

Currently the surface accuracy of the GBT has been measured to be roughly 250 microns.