News

NOEMA has seen the successful deployment of the 8th antenna early April, with first fringes on all baselines detected only 10 days later on the 19th of April. The NOEMA project stays on track with the ambitious timescales for construction, commissioning and integration of its future antennas.

The 8 NOEMA antennas, credit : C. Lefevre/IRAM

Holography has confirmed the excellent presetting of the reflector panels by laser adjustments to 40 µm rms. This result allows to integrate the antenna into the interferometer with full sensitivity right from the start. Eight antennas in the interferometer of course mean increased sensitivity but it is in particular the dynamic range of the imaging which makes a huge step forward.

The 9th antenna is already assembled up to the yoke and reflector construction will start in summer this year.

Meanwhile,more than half on the antennas are already equipped with the new NOEMA wide band receivers which show excellent performance and an extended and unique frequency coverage down to 72 GHz. Full receiver upgrade will be achieved in October this year.

First fringes on all 28 NOEMA baselines with 8 antennas achieved on the 19th of April 2016.

French translation on the CNRS/INSU web page : http://www.insu.cnrs.fr/node/580