AUSTRALIA TELESCOPE COMPACT ARRAY

The Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), also known as the Paul Wild Observatory, is located about 25 km west of the town of Narrabri, in the New South Wales region, about 500 km northwest of Sydney. It consists of an array of six antennas, each 22 m in diameter, used in radio astronomy (we "listen" to the stars in order to study them in very specific wavelengths). It is operated by the Astronomy and Space Science Division of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). This "Compact Array" is the first instrument of its kind installed in the Southern Hemisphere. It operates 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Its activity is purely scientific (no military activities). Its antennas work together to simulate the performance that would be obtained with a much larger antenna: this technique is called "interferometry", and thus allows to obtain very detailed images. If this observatory uses most of the time only its six antennas spread over 6 km, it happens that they are associated with other radio astronomical antennas installed all over Australia (it is the case with the radio telescope of Parkes) to produce extremely detailed images.

The visitor center is located on the edge of a natural environment in which it is not uncommon to see kangaroos, emus and sometimes koalas!