How does the array work in practice?

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Some information on exactly how the system works would be most helpful. For example, how do 5 dishes spread out over 3 miles work with the one that is fixed 3 km away from the track? How are the five spread out on the track to accomplish various bits of radio astronomy? Evenly? in bunches? or what? N2e (talk) 15:19, 21 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

File:CSIRO ScienceImage 3881 Five Antennas at Narrabri - restoration1.jpg to appear as POTD soon

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Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:CSIRO ScienceImage 3881 Five Antennas at Narrabri - restoration1.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on February 5, 2020. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2020-02-05. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:46, 2 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

The Australia Telescope Compact Array is a radio telescope operated by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) at the Paul Wild Observatory, 25 km (16 mi) west of the town of Narrabri in New South Wales, Australia. The telescope is an array of six identical dishes each 22 metres (72 ft) in diameter, which commonly operate in aperture synthesis mode to produce images from radio waves. Five of the dishes can be moved along a 3-kilometre (2 mi) railway track; the sixth is situated three kilometres west of the end of the main track. Each dish weighs about 270 tonnes (270 long tons; 300 short tons).

This photograph, showing five of the Australia Telescope Compact Array's dishes, was taken around 1984, in the late phase of the construction process. It is a long-exposure photograph taken in darkness in the late evening; during the exposure, the photographer, John Masterson, walked around the dishes firing off over 130 flashes using a hand-held flash gun.Photograph credit: John Masterson, CSIRO; restored by Bammesk