Welcome to Noto VLBI antenna home page

Radio astronomy deals with the detection and analysis of electromagnetic waves emitted by celestial objects in the frequency range from 100 to 100.000 MHz. The first cosmic radio source were discovered in 1931 by Karl Jansky, an American engineer from The Bell Telephone Company, who identified a faint signal from The Milky Way. The large development of radio astronomy grew up after World War II, as the technological progress allowed for the construction of sensitive and accurate radio telescopes.
The Institute of Radioastronomy of INAF was founded in 1970 as a CNR institute, from a previously existing University Laboratory, operates two stations, respectively in Medicina (Bologna) and Noto (Siracusa), with a total of 3 radio telescopes: The "Northern Cross" radio telescope (600 m x 600 m) for low frequency observations and 2 dish antennas (32 m), designed mainly for VLBI observation and now used also for single-dish observation. A third radiotelescope SRT is under construction in Sardinia with the collaboration of the Cagliari Astronomical Observatory.
