| Abstract: | The Very Long Baseline Array is a high-resolution synthesis radio telescope consisting of ten antennas, each 25 meters in diameter, located throughout the United States from Puerto Rico to Hawaii. Each antenna will be equipped with low-noise receivers spaced throughout the frequency range from 330 megahertz to 43 gigahertz, a hydrogen-maser frequency standard for time and frequency reference, and broadband digital tape recorders. Tapes recorded at each antenna will be simultaneously replayed and correlated in a specially built digital correlator, and the correlator output will, by Fourier transformation, be used to construct images of celestial radio sources with an angular resolution better than one thousandth of an arc second. |
