Communications across the vastness of interstellar space could be enhanced by taking advantage of a star’s ability to focus and magnify communication signals. A team of graduate students at Penn State is looking for just these sorts of communication signals that might be taking advantage of our own sun if transmissions were passing through our solar system.
(more…)Green Bank Telescope featured in Civil Engineering magazine
The July/August Civil Engineering magazine features the Green Bank Telescope as its covered story, picture by Jee Seymour.
(more…)Green Bank Observatory Call for Proposals: 2023A Semester
The Green Bank Observatory (GBO) invites scientists to participate in the 2023A Semester Call for Proposals for the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The submission deadline for Semester 2023A proposals is Monday, 1 August 2021, at 17:00 EDT (21:00 UTC).
(more…)Continuum Observing with the GBT
There are two instruments on the GBT specifically designed for carrying out sensitive continuum observations: (1) Mustang-2 which is a bolometer array operating at 90 GHz, and (2) Ka-band with the Caltech Continuum Backend (CCB) which operates over 26-38GHz. Continuum observations are available with other GBT receivers, but are limited by the 1/f noise. GBT Memo#282 provides the performance of the GBT receivers for continuum observations. This memo provides the maximum effective bandwidth for each receiver. For mapping extended regions, the effective bandwidth [BWeff] is smaller than the bandwidth given in GBT Memo#282 [BWeff(max)] based on the time scale between the ON and OFF/reference observations. Depending on the time scale (t) between the ON and OFF/reference observations (or time to map over a region of interest), the BWeff = BWeff(max) (0.2 sec/t), where the time (t) is in seconds. The continuum sensitivity can be estimated using the sensitivity calculator by selecting a bandwidth (e.g., in spectral-line mode) that matches the 1/f noise effective bandwidth. This is the minimum noise level that can be reached by a single observation. Improvements can be made by making multiple observations (the noise integrates down as (1/N)0.5 where N is the number of independent observations). Thus, for continuum observations it is important to take many short observations and to carry out fast mapping scans for imaging.
Please contact a GBT scientist if you have any questions.
