Photo taken by
Norbert Tacken, Summer 2010
Call for Proposals - Deadline October 11, 2010, UT 15:00
Observing proposals are invited for the
Effelsberg 100-meter Radio Telescope of the Max Planck Institute for
Radio Astronomy (MPIfR).
The Effelsberg telescope is one of the
World's largest fully steerable instruments. This extreme-precision
antenna is used exclusively for research in radio astronomy, both as a
stand-alone instrument as well as for Very Long Baseline Interferometry
(VLBI) experiments.
With the advent of the new sub-reflector,
observations from the secondary focus (especially at frequencies >
10 GHz) gain from a much higher sensitivity and flatter gain-elevation
curves.
The new hexapod driving system leads to a faster and more precise
focusing of all receiving systems in the primary and secondary focus.
Access to the telescope is open to all
qualified astronomers. Use of the instrument by scientists from outside
the MPIfR is strongly encouraged. The institute can provide support and
advice on project preparation, observation, and data analysis.
The directors of the institute make
observing time available to applicants based on the recommendations of
the Program Committee for Effelsberg (PKE), which judges the scientific
merit (and technical feasibility) of the observing requests.
Information about the telescope, its
receivers and backends and the Program Committee can be found at http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/english/radiotelescope/index.html
Observing modes
Possible observing modes include spectral
line, continuum, pulsar, and VLBI. Available backends are a FFT
spectrometer (with 16384 channels), a digital continuum backend, a
pulsar system (coherent and incoherent dedispersion), and two VLBI
terminals (MK4 and VLBA type).
Receiving systems cover the frequency
range from 0.6 to 96 GHz. The actual availability of the receivers
depends on technical circumstances and proposal pressure. For a
description of the receivers see the web pages.
How to submit
Applicants should use the new NorthStar
proposal tool for preparation and submission of their observing
requests. North Star is reachable at https://proposal.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
From 2010 on only proposals submitted via NorthStar will be accepted.
For VLBI proposals special rules apply.
For proposals which request Effelsberg as part of the European VLBI
Network (EVN) see: http://www.evlbi.org/proposals/prop.html
Information on proposals for the Global
mm-VLBI network can be found at
http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/vlbi/globalmm/index.html
Other proposals which ask for Effelsberg
plus (an)other antenna(s) should be submitted twice, one to the MPIfR
and a second to the institute(s) operating the other telescope(s) (eg.
to NRAO for the VLBA).
by Alex Kraus
RadioNet Transnational Access Programme
RadioNet (see http://www.radionet-eu.org
) includes a coherent set of Transnational Access programmes
aimed at significantly improving the access of European astronomers to
the major radio astronomical infrastructures that exist in, or are
owned and run by, European organizations. Observing time at
Effelsberg is available to astronomers from EU Member States (except
Germany) and Associated States that meet certain criteria of
eligibility. For more information:
http://www.radionet-eu.org/transnational-access
Time on these facilities is awarded
following standard selection procedures for each TNA site, mainly based
on scientific merits and feasibility. New users, young researchers and
users from countries with no similar research infrastructure, are
specially encouraged to apply. User groups who are awarded observing
time under this contract, following the selection procedures and
meeting the criteria of eligibility, will gain free access to the
awarded facility, including infrastructure and logistical support,
scientific and technical support usually provided to internal users and
travel and subsistence grants for one of the members of the research
team.
by Alex Kraus
What’s new @Effelsberg
New Telescope Control System for the 100-m
telescope
In July this year the old control system
for the 100-m telescope – based on a microVax computer (running mostly
FORTRAN code) and some additional specifically designed hardware
(everything more than 15 years old) – has been replaced by new hard-
and software. This new system consists of two VME computers
(which control the telescope, the subreflector and the receiver
frontends) and a Linux PC that runs the central control processes and
hosts the observer interface. The software of the new system is mostly
programmed in PYTHON and C/C++.
The new system is much better suited to
incorporate new backends or additional observing modes. It is much
easier to operate as the observer's interface is based on a GUI (see
pictures below). Additionally, it allows better planning of an
observing run by building a queue of individual observations and will
also simplify remote observations.
The system is still under test, however,
by this time, most observing modes were used successfully; several
regular programs are already performed with it. We expect to have
the implementation and testing completed by the end of September, so
that the new system will be fully functional with the beginning of the
winter season.
By Alex Kraus
Observer’s input for continuum mapping
Observer’s input for Pulsar Observations
(Tracking)
Queued
observations
Main control display
Science Highlights
Effelsberg plays role in weighing planets
and exciting the public
Image: David Champion
In two independent projects described in
recent press releases, observations with the 100-m telescope played an
important role in two international projects. David Champion and his
colleagues used radio signals of pulsars to derive the masses of the
large planets in our solar system. Within the “Einstein@Home” project,
the first pulsar could be detected in survey data taken with the
Arecibo radio telescope and analysed in the computers of German and
American “citizen scientists”. Dedicated observations of the new pulsar
performed by Michael Kramer and colleagues with the Effelsberg
telescope helped to establish the nature of the discovered pulsar.
An international research team led by
David Champion, now at Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in
Bonn, with researchers from Australia, Germany, the U.S., UK and Canada
has come up with a new way to weigh the planets in our Solar System,
using radio signals from pulsars.
Until now, astronomers have weighed
planets by measuring the orbits of their moons or of spacecraft flying
past them. That's because mass creates gravity, and a planet's
gravitational pull determines the orbit of anything that goes around it
- both the size of the orbit and how long it takes to complete. The new
method is based on corrections astronomers make to signals from
pulsars. Measurements of planet masses made this new way could feed
into data needed for future space missions.
Data from a set of four pulsars have been
used to weigh Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn with their moons
and rings. Most of these data were recorded by CSIRO's Parkes radio
telescope in eastern Australia, with data contributed by the Effelsberg
telescope in Germany and the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The
masses were consistent with those measured by spacecraft. The mass of
the Jovian system (Jupiter and its moons), 9.547921(2) x 10-4 times the
mass of the Sun, is significantly more accurate than the mass
determined from the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft, and consistent
with, but less accurate than, the value from the Galileo spacecraft.
The new measurement technique is sensitive
to just 0.003% of the mass of the Earth, and one ten-millionth of
Jupiter's mass (corresponding to a mass difference of two hundred
thousand million million tonnes).
Astronomers need accurate timing results
because they're using pulsars to hunt for gravitational waves predicted
by Einstein's general theory of relativity. Finding these waves depends
on spotting minute changes in the timing of pulsar signals, and so all
other sources of timing error must be accounted for, including the
traces of solar system planets.
In a project led by colleagues at the
Max-Planck Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein Institut)
the “Einstein@Home” project was used to analyse data taken during the
P-ALFA survey at Arecibo, which led to the discovery of a pulsar now
called PSR J2007+2722. The pulsar rotates 41 times per second and
is located in the Milky way at a distance of approximately 17,000 light
years. Unlike most of the pulsars spinning that fast, PSR J2007+2722
sits alone in space without a companion star, established with the help
of Effelsberg observations. Astronomers consider the pulsar as
especially interesting since it is likely that the new pulsar is a
recycled pulsar that lost its companion, similar to the “Black widow
pulsar”, earlier detected by MPIfR’s “Fundamental Physics in Radio
Astronomy” research group.
Both press releases, referring to research
papers in “Astrophysical Journal” and “Science”, are available via
MPIfR web pages:
-
• Weighing the Planets - from Mercury to Saturn,
http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/public/pr/pr-pulsarweight-en.html
-
• Pulsar von Amateuren entdeckt,
http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/public/pr/pr-pulsareinstein-dt.html
-
• Einstein@Home ‚citizen scientists’ discover new pulsar,
http://www.aei.mpg.de/pdf/pm_news/2010/PM2010_Einstein_Home_pulsar_engl.pdf
By Norbert Junkes
The Effelsberg-Bonn HI Survey (EBHIS) in
Full Swing
Using a seven-feed receiver system
equipped with state-of-the art Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)
spectrometers, the 100-m Effelsberg telescope performs an all-sky
survey north of Dec = -5 degree, the Effelsberg-Bonn HI survey (EBHIS).
Using 100 MHz bandwidth EBHIS performs for the very first time in
parallel a Milky Way and an extragalactic HI survey out to a red shift
of z = 0.07.
One of the two large coherent fields we
have observed so far. The Figure shows a column density map (as
calculated within a radial velocity between -50 and +50 km/s). Due to
the high angular resolution of the Effelsberg 100-m telescope we see
lots of filamentary web-like structures, shock fronts, and shells.
Regular EBHIS survey observations started
during the winter term 2008/2009 after extensive system evaluation and
verification tests. Until today, we surveyed about 8000 square degrees,
focussing during the first coverage on the galactic north pole region
and the northern extension of the Magellanic cloud system. The first
whole northern sky coverage of the EBHIS is expected to be finished
until mid 2011 and will offer an RMS limit of less than 90 mK at full
velocity resolution of 1.3 km/s. Hence, already the first EBHIS
coverage will reach a sensitivity level comparable to GASS and
HIPASS and will complete the radio view of the whole sky at 21-cm.
http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/hisurvey/
By Jürgen Kerp & Benjamin Winkel for
the EBHIS team
Position-Velocity plot of one of our
measurements showing the Milky Way emission and the galaxy NGC 4395 at
a radial velocity of about 350 km/s. The left panel shows the data
without radio frequency interference mitigation applied, the right
panel uses our mitigation algorithm.
Who is who in Effelsberg ?
Norbert Tacken, Telescope Operator
After 10 years in an architectural office
in Bonn-Bad Godesberg and several years of freelancing as an IT-Expert,
Photoshop Trainer and Photo-Designer he finally made his way to the
Max-Planck-Institute. In 2002 he joined the Effelsberg staff as
telescope operator. Since then he began taking care of the telescope
and the observers. At the same time, he started to support our
PR-Department with his photos.
In his spare time Norbert is really fond
of taking pictures and many of his artistic results -concerning the
telescope- might be well known to us (see e.g. the header of the
Effelsberg Newsletter). His pictures are appearing regularly on our web
sites. He has been designing calendars, postcards, T-Shirts and
many more. His fields of interest in Photography are: People,
Travel and Architecture (and our telescope of course). Besides a
couple of exhibitions he had performed pretty well at several photo
contests and was honored with a couple of prizes. His favorite
all time motto is: Always look at the bright side of life (especially
when using a digital camera).
As part of the celebrations for the 40th
anniversary of the inauguration of the 100-m telescope next year, we
decided to call for a photo contest with the slogan “The Radio
Telescope within the Landscape”. Norbert will be in the jury, which
will review the pictures – guess who created the poster for the contest
…
Heiko Hafok , New Software Engineer
@Effelsberg
Afterwards he spent 2 years at the
Radioastronomisches Institut der Universität Bonn (RAIUB). During
this time he did the first design of a new LINUX based control system
for the KOSMA 3m telescope and SOFIA. End of 2002 he joined the the
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie in Bonn. In the following years
he did software development for APEX (Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment)
and the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) control system and the
data reduction pipelines in the group for submillimeter technology.
Since 2010 he joined the computing team at
the Effelsberg radio observatory. His main field of activities are
software development of the control system and the management of the
computing environment at Effelsberg
Public Outreach Activities
The 100-m radio telescope will soon turn
40!
The Effelsberg radio telescope was built
between 1967 and 1971, the official opening took place on May 12, 1971.
After several months of testing and implementation of receivers the
full commencement of operation took place on August 01, 1972.
Thus, the 40th anniversary of the 100 m telescope will be celebrated
with a number of events from spring 2011 to autumn 2012. One highlight
is certainly the next Open Day at the radio observatory which will be
held on Saturday, September 10, 2011. Other events within
the framework of the anniversary will include series of talks,
celebrations, a photo contest (see article on page 5). Please
stay tuned – information about the Effelsberg anniversary will soon be
available via:
http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/effelsberg/40years
By Norbert Junkes
The 100m radio telescope under
construction (early 1971).
Image: Hans Kärcher, MT aerospace.
Busaba Hutawarakorn Kramer
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie,
Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, GERMANY
Tel: +49 (228) 525-377 Fax: +49 (228)
525-229
Email: bkramer@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
Website: http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/effelsberg/newsletter/
