Technical Information
The GMRT contains 30 fully steerable telescopes. There are fourteen telescopes randomly arranged in the central square 1 km by 1 km in size, with a further sixteen arranged in three arms of a nearly "Y"-shaped array each having a length of 14 km from the array centre. The GMRT is an interferometer which uses a technique known as aperture synthesis to make images of radio sources. The GMRT operates in six frequency bands centered at 38, 153, 233, 327, 610, and 1420 MHz.
Each antenna is 45 metres in diameter with the reflector made of wire rope stretched between metal struts in a parabolic configuration. This configuration works because of the long wavelengths (21 cm and longer) at which the telescope operates. Each antenna has four different receivers mounted at the focus. Each individual receiver assembly can rotate so that the user can select the frequency at which to observe.
The maximum baseline in the array gives the telescope an angular resolution (the smallest angular scale that can be distinguished) of about 1 arcsecond at the frequency of neutral hydrogen (1420 MHz).
Read more about this topic: Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope
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