Assume that one wishes to detect with a S/N of 10 the CO(2-1)
line from an extended
envelope covering about the telescope main beam (
). The expected line
width and strengths are 6 MHz (7.8 km/s) and
= 0.06 K (note that
we assume in
these crude calculations that we are still in the Rayleigh-Jeans regime). The
line is assumed flat-topped.
we need then = 3 mK in a 6 MHz/2= 3 MHz band.
If we use the 230G1 alone with a 10 dB rejection (=0.1),
K, zenith opacity
, elevation = 42
applying the above
formula lead to
= 65 K and
410 K.
Assume we use 230G1 alone with the 1_1M filterbank. Then f=1, .
After 1h of ON+OFF integration, the r.m.s. noise in a 3 MHz band will be
mK.
We thus need theoretically to integrate during 1h 7h to
reach the requested sensitivity. (If we wished to use the autocorrelator, this
time would increase by a factor
and would be 9 h.)
If we use the wobbling subreflector for these observations, the theoretical observing time will be 7h/R= 7/0.62= 11.3 h, to which we should add the receiver tuning (20min for 1 tuning, but one retuning after shifting the LO would be advised, so 30min) and the preparation steps (25min if this is the first observation).