ATCA Observing Information
Recent News
1 August 2025
- Science commissioning of BIGCAT underway, with first BIGCAT image
- Science commissioning of BIGCAT underway, with first BIGCAT image
1 July 2025
- ssh access to ATNF systems now requires a key and password - see here for details.
24 March 2025
- Commissioning of new BIGCAT correlator begins
10 April 2024
- VNC passwords were changed for the new semester. Request the new password.
1 March 2024
- Version 2 of the schedule for the 2024APR semester has been released, making several changes from version 1. The schedule was also put into the Portal.
3 January 2024
- Version 3 of the schedule for the 2023OCT semester has been released.
13 October 2023
- Removed link to the non-functional satellite interference tool.
1 April 2023
- From the 2023APR semester onwards we have moved to a new ATNF Support model which retires the Duty Astronomer role in favour of an Expert Observer (EO).
29 March 2023
- Version 2 of the schedule for the 2023APR semester has been released, to accommodate some global VLBI observations.
20 January 2023
- Removed COVID status from this page as we no longer have any COVID restrictions.
- Updated the accommodation link below.
12 November 2021
- ATCA Users Guide updated.
Observing
Scheduling
- See all scheduled observations.
- Login to the ATCA Portal to see recent changes to the schedule.
- The list of CX-numbered observations (usually targets-of-opportunity).
Planning
- Book accommodation at the observatory or the Marsfield lodge.
- Read the requirements for remote observing.
- Request the current observing password.
- List of useful contact numbers.
Support
- Details of the new ATNF support model.
- If you experience a problem, submit a fault report.
- Check the fault report archive.
- Tell us about your experiences with an observer survey.
- Ask a question about your observing or data reduction problems on the ATCA Forum.
Monitoring
Weather
- See what the sky looks like with the All-Sky camera.
- Check weather conditions with the ATCA weather station.
- Use the weather radar to see oncoming storm fronts.
- Look out for storms with the lightning tracker.
- See what an artificial neural network thinks the atmospheric seeing will be like.
RFI
- Check conditions at 16cm with our RFI Monitor.
- Check for known interference with our RFI databases, the ACMA Register of Radiocommunications Licences.
- If you experience bad RFI, tell us with an Fault report.
System
- The status of the telescope and observatory can be monitored with MoniCA.
- The ATCA alarm Twitter feed shows real-time alerts about faults with the array.
Tools
Preparing a schedule
- Use the CABB Scheduler to prepare your schedule and save it to the online observing machines.
- If you can't use that, use the offline CABB Scheduler, which can only save schedules to your local machine.
- Read the Users Guide appendix about the scheduler.
- Get some more information on the scheduler.
- Use the velocity to frequency calculator, and get a list of spectral line rest frequencies.
- Check the observability of your targets with the Interactive Observability Chart Plotter.
Choosing a calibrator
- Use the calibrator database.
Preparing a proposal
- Calculate the amount of time you will need with the CABB Sensitivity Calculator or BIGCAT Sensitivity Calculator.
- Simulate your observating configuration with the Friendly Virtual Radio Interferometer, developed by Cormac Purcell and Roy Truelove.
- Convert your target's coordinates with COCO (HEASARC version of the coordinate conversion form).
Getting your data
- ATOA: Australia Telescope Online Archive.
Guides
Observatory
- The ATCA Users Guide should be the first guide you check for answers. It is available as a single HTML page, multiple HTML pages, and a PDF. Last updated on 20 April 2022
- Read about the CABB correlator.
- Read about the Legacy Projects.
- Read about the Water Vapor Radiometers available on all antennas.
- Read about the design and construction of the ATCA in the JEEEA Special Issue ("green book").
Observing
- Learn how to observe with videos on our YouTube training channel.
- Read our beginner's guide to the ATCA Portal.
- A guide to the support available for your observations.
- A guide to weather overrides.
- A guide to the ATCA observing terminals.
Proposals
- How to apply for ATCA observing time (consult also Chapter 1 of the ATCA Users Guide)
- How to request target-of-opportunity or NAPA time.
- Conditions of use for green time / unallocated time / Director's time.
- How to request replacement time.
Data Reduction
- Read the Miriad Users Guide and Chapter 4 of the ATCA Users Guide.
- Check the archive of issues that have affected ATCA data.
- Get an updated baseline solution for 3/7/15mm observations taken without a good mm baseline solution in place.
Please give us feedback!
If you prefer the old version of this page, you can visit it here.
Original: Nuria McKay (15-May-1995)
Modified: John Reynolds (6-Aug-2025)