Dr. Alex Kraus
Head of the observatory
Phone:+49 2257 301-0Fax:+49 2257 301-105

Radio Telescope Effelsberg

With a diameter of 100 meters, the Radio Telescope Effelsberg is one of the largest fully steerable radio telescopes on earth. Its inauguration took place on May 12, 1971. Since the full start of operations in 1972, the technology has been continually improved (i.e. new surface for the antenna-dish, better reception of high-quality data, extremely low noise electronics) making it one of the most advanced modern telescopes worldwide.

The telescope is employed to observe pulsars, cold gas- and dust clusters, the sites of star formation, jets of matter emitted by black holes and the nuclei (centres) of distant far-off galaxies and also radio emission and magnetic fields in our Milky Way and nearby galaxies.

Effelsberg is an important part of the worldwide network of radio telescopes. The combination of different telescopes in interferometric mode makes possible to obtain the sharpest images of the universe.

The radio telescopes of the Effelsberg observatory (100-m telescope and Effelsberg LOFAR station) are extremely sensitive receivers for the measurement of extremely weak radio signals from astronomical sources in the distant universe. Man-made radio interference can cause significant problems with the observations.

We therefore ask to switch off mobile phones, notebooks and other electronical devices either completely or to operate them in flight mode.



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