Australia Telescope: Mopra Telescope

Welcome to the Mopra Telescope

The Mopra Telescope is a 22-m single-dish radio telescope located at the edge of the Warrumbungle Mountains near Coonabarabran, about 450 km north-west of Sydney. It is operated by CSIROs Astronomy and Space Science division, as are the Parkes Telescope and the Australia Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri in north-west New South Wales. A fourth radio telescope, the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, is also being developed by CSIRO at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in the mid-west of Western Australia. Collectively, CSIRO's radio astronomy observatories are known as the Australia Telescope National Facility, with the facility supporting Australia's research in radio astronomy.

Mopra is situated at a latitude and longitude of -31:16:04, 149:05:59 and an elevation of 866 m. The telescope is primarily used for 3-mm spectroscopy and VLBI experiments. The Mopra Control Desk is located in the control building at the Paul Wild Observatory. Observers must carry out their own observing. Remote observing with the Mopra Telescope is possible from anywhere in the world.

Large Science Programs are those projects requiring > 400 hrs of observing time over the lifetime of the project. The following webpage contains a list of Large Science Programs for all ATNF telescopes.
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/large_proj.html

A Call for expressions of interest to operate or fund the Mopra telescope from October 2012 was released on 18 November. Expressions of interest should be submitted by 16 January 2012.

Mopra Observing Guides

Information for Observers All the information you need to prepare your proposal and your observing run
Mopra Current Issues Check here before starting your observing run
Mopra Online CAlendar Check here before asking for greentime
Mopra Remote Observing Find out how to set up remote observing sessions
NEW 30 MAY 2011 Mopra Quick Reference Handbook (QRH) Also check the "Current Issues" page please.
Telescope Control System User Interface (TCS UI) Manual

ATNF Observing Information

Observing Tools

Observability charts plotter
Beam position mapper to verify your maps. DO NOT USE UNLESS YOU ARE THE OBSERVER IN CHARGE!
mops_vis: The tools for finding your central frequency and zoom window numbers. (requires wish, runs on linux/cygwin/osx)
Sensitivity calculator (2005 versions)
Sensitivity calculator 2009 version
NEW 11 MAY 2011 Schedule File Tool: Position Switching v5.0
On-The-Fly Mapping v6.0 Schedule File Tool, supports fast mapping and graphical zoom window selection. If you have trouble with the new Schedule File Tool, here's the old one: On-The-Fly Mapping v5.3
Velocity to frequency calculator
Catalogue & Monitoring of SiO masers
Coordinate Calculator COORD
Submit a Fault Report
Submit Observer Questionnaire

Data Reduction & Calibration

NEW 02 JUL 11 Map making tutorial. An brief tutorial outlining how to reduce Mopra mapping data using livedata, gridzilla, kvis, miriad and to clean it up and present it pretty with IDL.
ASAP - ATNF Spectral Analysis Package An ASAP-GUI interface has been developed by Cormac Purcell and is available for download
Livedata/Gridzilla - On-the-fly Mapping Analysis Package
Calibration Page

Mopra Monitoring Information

TOAD (ATNF external access) Bookmark the new URL!
TOAD (ATNF internal access) Bookmark the new URL!
Weather
Mopra Webcam
Mopra SkyCam
(External) IR Satellite Loop
Lightning
Select monitor points
MAPS
Miscellaneous(Also see information on MoniCA)
NEW Impending CLOUDSAT passes. Avoid pointing near zenith with 3mm on axis during CLOUDSAT passes!

Local Mopra Observatory Information

Mopra OHS manual [PDF].
Mopra Visitor's guide

Modified: Balt Indermuehle (02 Jul 2011)