Proceedings Article | 6 July 2006
KEYWORDS: Receivers, Telescopes, Mirrors, Heterodyning, Space telescopes, Antennas, Optical components, Channel projecting optics, Space observatories, Relays
APEX, the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment, is collaboration between Max Planck Institut fur Radioastronomie (MPIfR) with Astronomisches Institut Ruhr Universitat Bochum, Onsala Space Observatory and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The telescope was supplied by VERTEX Antennentechnik in Duisburg, Germany, and is a 12 m antenna with 15 μm rms surface accuracy operating at the Atacama Desert Llano Chajnantor, in the Chilean Andes at 5100 m altitude. APEX heterodyne single pixel facility receiver are placed in the telescope Nasmyth cabin A. The receivers are coupled to the antenna via relay optics providing possibility to operate either one of the two different PI-type instruments or a multi-channel facility heterodyne receiver to cover 211 - 1500 GHz frequency range. In this report, we present the optical design for APEX single-pixel facility heterodyne receiver providing frequency independent illumination of the secondary for all the receiver channels. We present design of the two-channel facility receiver APEX A, installed and operating since June 2005, and of the coming 6-channel APEX facility receiver. The report includes a brief review of the mixer technology development status for APEX Band 1, 211 - 270 GHz, using sideband separation technology (2SB), Band 2, 270 - 370 GHz, 2SB, Band 3, 385 - 500 GHz, 2SB, and Band T2, 1250 - 1390 GHz, HEB waveguide balanced mixer, those on the development at Onsala Space Observatory. We present description of the receiver control system and example observation of APEX 2a receiver.
