General information

1) The 40m radio telescope is a Nasmyth-Cassegrain antenna which operates in the centimetre and millimetre wave range. It is the most important observing instrument of the Observatory of Yebes and it is currently equipped with high sensitivity cryogenic dual polarization receivers which cover the following bands: 2.1-2.4 GHz, 4.5-9 GHz, 8.1-8.9 GHz, 18-32 GHz, 32-50 GHz and 72-90 GHz. The telescope works in two different modes: as a single dish telescope and as an element of several international interferometric networks like the European VLBI Network and the Global Millimeter VLBI Array. As a single dish element, it is equipped with an ultra-wide 18 GHz spectral backend, state of the art, connected to the 32-50 GHz and 72-90 GHz receivers and a 14 GHz spectral backend connected to the 18-32 GHz receiver. For the second type of observations the telescope is equipped with instrumentation that allows to record, store and transfer big volumes of data at very high speed to the correlator centers. The telescope, and the rest of the Observatory is connected at 100 Gb/s to the high velocity Spanish scientific network Rediris-NOVA.

2) The 13.2 m radio telescope of the Observatory of Yebes, is one of the most active and important elements of the VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS) within the Internationa VLBI Service (IVS). It is also the main node of the Red Atlántica de Estaciones Geoespaciales (RAEGE) composed of 4 telescopes: Yebes, Santa María (Açores Islands), Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands (still under construction) and Flores (only projected). The telescope is specially designed to perform geodetic VLBI VGOS observations, and as such it is equipped with a high wide band receiver between 2 and 14 GHz. The data are recorded and stored locally and transferred later to the corresponding geodetic correlator.

3) Microwave and Millimeter Wave Cryogenic Laboratory. The Observatory of Yebes is a center for the development of radio astronomy devices and is considered an international reference in this area for its quality and reliability. The developments are mainly performed at these laboratories which are equipped with microwave, millimeter and cryogenic instrumentation for the characterization of microwave and millimeter components. The frequency range extends from DC to 140 GHz and the characterization of the devices is done in a wide temperature range: from ambient to cryogenic temperatures (4 K).