Australia Telescope

System of radio telescopes in New South Wales, Australia, operated by the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF), part of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). It consists of six 22-m/72-ft antennae at Culgoora, near Narrabri, known as the Australia Telescope Compact Array; the 64-m/210-ft Parkes radio telescope; and the 22-m/75-ft Mopra radio telescope – the whole simulating a dish 300 km/186 mi across.

The Australia Telescope can be operated in three configurations: the compact array of the six Culgoora antennae, located at the Paul Wild Observatory, which can map the same fine detail as could a telescope 6 km/3.7 mi in diameter; the long-baseline array, in which one or more of the antennae in the compact array are linked to the antennae at Siding Spring Mountain and Parkes, and which is 50 times better at resolving fine detail than the compact array; and the arrays formed by linking with other antennae in Australia and overseas, or with orbiting radio telescopes.