The Warkworth Radio Astronomical Observatory is a

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...

, located just south of

Warkworth, New Zealand Warkworth () is a town on the Northland Peninsula in the upper North Island of New Zealand. It is in the northern part of the Auckland Region, north of Auckland and south of Whangārei, at the head of Mahurangi Harbour. State Highway 1 (New Ze ...

, about 50 km north of the

Auckland CBD The Auckland Central Business District (CBD), or Auckland city centre, is the geographical and economic heart of the Auckland, Auckland metropolitan area. It is the area in which Auckland was established in 1840, by William Hobson on land gifted ...

. It was established by the Institute for Radio Astronomy and Space Research,

Auckland University of Technology Auckland University of Technology ( AUT; ) is a university in New Zealand, formed on 1 January 2000 when a former technical college (originally established in 1895) was granted university status. AUT is New Zealand's third largest university i ...

. The WARK12M 12m Radio Telescope was constructed in 2008. In 2010, a licence to operate the

Telecom New Zealand Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications and digital services company providing fixed-line telephone services, mobile phone services, broadband, and digital technology services (including cloud, security, digital transfor ...

30m dish was granted, which led to the commissioning of the WARK30M 30m Radio Telescope. The first observations made in conjunction with the Australian Long Baseline Array took place in 2011. The observatory was purchased b
Space Operations New Zealand Limited (SpaceOps NZ)
in July 2023 after the university decided to close the facility. Because of its wider ambit, the facility is now called the Warkworth Space Centre.

History

The Warkworth Space Centre is on land that was first developed for long-range telecommunications, operated by the

New Zealand Post Office The New Zealand Post Office (NZPO) was a government department of New Zealand until 1987. It was previously (from 1881 to 1959) named the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department (NZ P&T). As a government department, the New Zealand Post Office ...

and opening on 17 July 1971. The station, primarily connecting to fourth generation

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly Intel-Sat, Intelsat) is a Luxembourgish-American multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons, Virginia, United States. Originally formed ...

satellites, was used for satellite telephone circuits and television, including the broadcast of the

1974 British Commonwealth Games The 1974 British Commonwealth Games () were held in Christchurch, New Zealand, from 24 January to 2 February 1974. The bid vote was held in Edinburgh at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games. The event was officially named "the friendly games". T ...

, held in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

. The shallow valley site was chosen as it was sheltered from winds and radio noise, and the horizon elevation of only 5° allowed the station to be useful for transmissions to low orbit satellites. The original 30-metre antenna was decommissioned on 18 June 2008 and demolished. A second antenna and station building were opened on 24 July 1984. This was removed from commercial service in November 2010, after which the

upgraded the motor drives and began using it for radio astronomy.

Technical information

hydrogen maser A hydrogen maser, also known as hydrogen frequency standard, is a specific type of maser that uses the intrinsic properties of the hydrogen atom to serve as a precision frequency reference. Overview Both the proton and electron of a hydrogen ato ...

is installed on-site to provide the very accurate timing required by VLBI observations. The observatory has a 10 Gbit/s connection to the

REANNZ The Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd. (REANNZ), formerly known as the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN), is a high-capacity, high-speed national research and education network (NREN) connecting New Zeal ...

network, providing high speed data transfers for files and e-VLBI as well as linking the site to the global

national research and education network A national research and education network (NREN) is a specialised internet service provider dedicated to supporting the needs of the research and education communities within a country. It is usually distinguished by support for a high-speed backb ...

architecture.Weston, S., Natusch, T., Gulyaev, S., 2010, in Proceedings of the 17th Electronics New Zealand Conference, submitted (preprint astro-ph/1011.0227)

References

{{authority control Auckland University of Technology Radio observatories Astronomy institutes and departments Astronomical instruments Astronomical observatories in New Zealand

History

Technical information

See also

References