Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope

 telescope, radio telescope

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The Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) is an aperture synthesis interferometer that consists of a linear array of 14 antennas arranged on a 2.7 km East-West line. It has a similar arrangement to other radio telescopes such as the One-Mile Telescope and the Ryle Telescope. Ten of the telescopes are on fixed mountings while the remaining four dishes are movable along two rail tracks. The telescope was completed in 1970 and underwent a major upgrade around 2000.

The telescopes in the array can operate at several frequencies between 120 MHz and 8.3 GHz. The WSRT is often combined with other telescopes around the world to perform Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations, being part of the European VLBI Network. The telescope is operated by ASTRON, the Dutch foundation for astronomy research.