Allen Telescope Array

Upon consideration, I think you're probably right about their wanting
to compare the performance of the new system with other radio
telescopes, in looking at cosmological objects. Their sensitivity, at
present, is modest, but resolution should be top rate.
My main reason for watching their work so closely is to see what you
describe, a time when a specific point in the celestial sphere is
scrutinized consistently. They only give Azimuth and Elevation
readings, so I worked out the range of the changing of these values over
time, and at various angles and the way they interrelate to one another,
which indicate fixed Right Ascension and Declination.

Sorry, I don't check the newsgroup very often. I will try to answer
the questions posed in this thread.

The ATA is a joint operation of the SETI Institute and the University
of California, Berkeley. Much of the array is being used in
preparation for a UCB radio astronomy survey called FiGSS (Five
Gigahertz Sky Survey). So, many of the observations are calibrations
on known radio sources. We need to understand the stability of the
sensitivity of the array, i.e., how often we have to calibrate. Other
observations using a subset of antennas are calibrating the
performance of the beamformer that will be used in SETI observations.
We have to understand how it performs over time and at different
frequencies.

The section of the galactic plane that we had planned to survey as our
first SETI project is now too close to Sun. It will become available
again in March. In the meantime we will conduct two other SETI
projects, one targeted and one survey.

Sorry too for the problem with the updates. We are working on new
software to provide more info on what's going on, but it won't be
ready soon. Too many tasks, too few people.

Peter Backus
Observing Programs Manager
SETI Institute