Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) has announced that a prototype dish for the SKA-Mid radio telescope array has commenced initial astronomical observations, known as “first light observations”. The SKA-Mid will be one of two instruments operated by the international Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) and will be located in the Karoo region of South Africa’s Northern Cape province. (The other instrument, SKA-Low, will be sited in Australia.) Germany will join the SKAO early this year.

The dish is designated the SKA-MPIfR telescope, acronymed to SKAMPI. It is a joint project, both in implementation and funding, between the MPIfR and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO). It was manufactured by CETC54 in China and OHB Digital Connect in Germany. SARAO has provided (including the development and integration of) several of the subsystems for SKAMPI. These included the Single Pixel Feed Controller, the Dish Fibre Network and the Helium and Vacuum services. SARAO also hosts SKAMPI.

The dish was physically erected back in mid-2018, in the Karoo. Technical commissioning, including tests and evaluations, started in December 2019 and concluded in early 2022. Since then, the focus has been on establishing a remote-operating and robotic system control framework, as well as on integrating the telescope’s operations with its key data-gathering and processing systems (respectively known as “front end” and “back end” systems) and synchronising observations, data acquisition and automated calibration.

The telescope is also jointly operated by the MPIfR and SARAO. It will now carry out initial science programmes, but additional technical developments are also planned for implementation. These include the creation of a framework allowing the fully robotic operation of SKAMPI and the development of advanced calibration strategies.

The dish’s first science observations involved an entire sweep of the Southern Sky, on two consecutive nights. The data collected was combined into a single image. “This image is an important step in the imaging commissioning process, demonstrating the suitability of the telescope and our approach for large-scale imaging,” highlighted MPIfR PhD researcher Ferdinand Jünemann. “Currently, we have 40 times more observations to process for a first total power release of a complete Southern Sky Survey in the S-band.”

Most observation time on SKAMPI will be reserved for MPIfR and SARAO programmes. But there will be opportunities for the German and South African science communities to request observations. There will also be an opportunity to create educational programmes for schools and universities.