CSIRO radio telescopes initiated an almost non-stop, 33-hour worldwide observing marathon as part of the official start to the International Year of Astronomy. Telescopes in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America tracked three quasars [J0204+1514, 0234+285 and 3C395] as they rose and set with the rotation of the Earth. Along with other telescopes near Kashima, Japan, and Shanghai, China, the Australian telescopes began the demonstration at 19:00 AEDT, January 15.
For the first time, a CSIRO radio telescope has been linked to others in China and Europe in real-time, demonstrating the power of high-speed global networks and effectively creating a telescope almost as big as the Earth. Last week a CSIRO telescope near Coonabarabran NSW was used simultaneously with one near Shanghai, China, and five in Europe to observe a distant galaxy called 3C273.
This is the first time weve been able to instantaneously connect telescopes half a world apart - Dr Tasso Tzioumis, VLBI operations and development manager at CSIROs Australia Telescope National Facility.
3C 273 is a quasar located in the constellation Virgo. It is the optically-brightest quasar in our sky (m ~ 12.9), and one of the closest with a redshift, z, of 0.158.