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KAT-7 South Africa team completes telescope milestone

29 Sep 2011

South Africa's Square Kilometre Array (SKA) team has successfully reached another milestone on the road to, hopefully, hosting the €1.5-billion SKA. They have completed the seven antennas making up the KAT-7 prototype and delivered the telescope's first astronomical image.

KAT-7 South Africa team completes telescope milestone

The Square Kilometre Array system will be 50-100 times more sensitive and 10 000 times faster than any radio imaging telescope yet built. South Africa, and eight other allied African countries, is competing against Australia (allied with New Zealand) for the right to host the MeerKAT radio telescope array, being built on the Karoo Astronomy Reserve outside the small Northern Cape Province town of Carnarvon.

The first astronomical image is of the galaxy Centaurus-A, whose intense radio emission is powered by a massive black hole at its centre. It has been created using all seven KAT-7 dishes. According to the SKA South Africa team, KAT-7's latest image is much more sensitive than an earlier image made in 2010 with just four of the KAT-7 dishes. The KAT-7 prototype is testing technology for the MeerKAT, which is due for completion in 2016.