Hat Creek Radio Observatory

The Hat Creek Radio Observatory is located, run by Radio Astronomy Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley Radio Observatory in California, about 500 km north-east of San Francisco in 1280 m height.

85 -foot radio telescope

The Hat Creek Radio Observatory ( HCrO ) was founded in the 1950s by the Radio Astronomy Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley. In 1960 a radio telescope with a 85 foot (26 m) diameter antenna in operation, which was used until its collapse in a storm in 1993.

BIMA Millimeterinterferometer

In the 1970s, experiments began with a radio interferometer for the millimeter wave range with first two telescopes. Successive more telescopes were added until were finally achieved in the 1990s 10 telescopes, each with 6 m diameter antenna, the receiver for 3 mm and (up to a telescope ) had 1 mm wavelength. This interferometer was operated jointly with the University of Illinois ( Urbana -Champaign ) and the University of Maryland ( College Park ) and is the name of this working group (Berkeley Illinois Maryland Association) as BIMA interferometer known.

2005, the telescopes of the BIMA interferometer were 9 relocated to another site to be part of the CARMA interferometer.

Allen Telescope Array ( ATA)

Since 2005, under construction in Hat Creek is a new radio interferometer for the centimeter wave band (frequencies from 0.5 to 11.2 GHz), which will include 350 telescopes, each 6.1 m diameter antenna in planned for 2008 completion, the network of over an area 1 km in diameter are scattered. Because of the resulting quilt it was formerly known as the '1- hectare telescope '. The new name comes the financial support of the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

With many relatively simple telescopes, large simultaneously überdecktem frequency range, large simultaneously covered face field due to the many individual telescopes and sophisticated computer processing of the received signals, the Allen Telescope Array is like LOFAR example of a new generation of large radio interferometers, which should lead to the planned international Square Kilometre Array.

The Allen Telescope Array will be used both for radio- astronomical observations as well as for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence ( SETI ).