An 'X-banded' Tidbinbilla interferometer

Abstract

The recent upgrading of the Tidbinbilla two-element interferometer to simultaneous S-band (2.3 GHz) and X-band (8.4 GHz) operation has provided a powerful new astronomical facility for weak radio source measurement in the Southern Hemisphere. The new X-band system has a minimum fringe spacing of 38 arcsec, and about the same positional measurement capability (approximately 2 arcsec) and sensitivity (1 s rms noise of 10 mJy) as the previous S-band system. However, the far lower confusion limit will allow detection and accurate positional measurements for sources as weak as a few millijanskys. This capability will be invaluable for observations of radio stars, X-ray sources and other weak, compact radio sources.