Call for Proposals

The Istituto di Radioastronomia offers observing time at the two 32-m radio telescopes at Medicina and Noto.
The Medicina telescope is furnished with a suite of receivers between 1.4 and 22 GHz which can be connected to various backends. In addition to a state-of-the-art digital backend, a polarimeter system with 400 MHz bandwidth can be attached to any available frontend. Spectroscopic observations can either be done with ARCOS, a 4096-channel autocorrelator with a maximum instantaneous bandwidth of 160 MHz and a maximum resolution of 40 Hz (8.4 m/s at 1.4 GHz) or a spectral analyser with an input bandwidth between 0.5 and 20 MHz, a temporal resolution of one spectrum/msec and a frequency resolution between 512 and 131,072 channels. Pulsar observations can be performed with a 2 x 64 x 1 MHz filter bank (left and right-hand polarisation). Receiver frequencies can be switched within a few seconds. 

A new 22-GHz double horn system has been mounted recently.

The telescope at Noto possesses an active surface which increases the telescope efficiency in particular at high frequencies (currently up to 43 GHz). Possible backends are the digital backend and the ARCOS autocorrelator.
In addition to all standard radioastronomical frequencies both telescopes allow observations of methanol lines in the 6.6-GHz band (with Noto also in the 12-GHz band). Coordination of these two telescopes for two-antenna VLBI or simultaneous single-dish observations is possible. VLBI observers should however provide disks and correlator time. Visiting astronomers can also install their own backends.
Proposals for observing time in the period 1st June 2013 to 30th November 2013 should include the IRA cover form. The package for proposal preparation can be downloaded from the URL in the frame to the left. They should be sent by 2nd April 2013 to the Istituto di Radioastronomia following the instructions on the given URL.
Furthermore, the institute invites submission of target-of-opportunity proposals at any time. These proposals should be submitted using the official proposal form. Evaluation and observations will be carried out rapidly if the requested telescope is available. Please check the telescope schedules prior to submission of such a proposal.
Observers with specific scheduling requirements are requested to justify these in the proposal.

The next regular deadline will be on October 1st, 2013.

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For any publications based on observations with the IRA telescopes please use the following acknowledgement:

"Based on observations with the Medicina (Noto) telescope operated by INAF - Istituto di Radioastronomia"

and please send a copy of any paper using the IRA telescopes data to Jan Brand - e-mail: brand (at) ira.inaf.it