SKA Telescope, Australia

The SKA Telescope in Australia, known as SKA-Low, is taking shape at the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in remote Western Australia, part of the global Square Kilometre Array project.

About the SKA Telescope, Australia

SKA-Low is one of two founding telescopes of the Square Kilometre Array, an international collaboration spanning 16 countries with sister sites in Australia and South Africa. When complete, it will comprise 131,072 antennas, distinctively shaped like small Christmas trees, arranged in 512 stations of 256 antennas each, with spiral arms stretching 65 to 74 kilometres end to end.

History

Construction of SKA-Low began on 5 December 2022. As of the current build phase, antenna positioning is under way across the roughly 74-kilometre site on Wajarri Yamaji Country in the Murchison region.

Location & getting there

The observatory sits about 800 kilometres north of Perth and around 315 kilometres northeast of Geraldton, which serves as the project's gateway town and hosts the SKA-Low Engineering Operations Centre and a CSIRO support facility. The Murchison site itself is a legislated radio-quiet zone, chosen to shield the sensitive antennas from interference.

Visiting the SKA Telescope, Australia

Because the Murchison site is a protected radio-quiet zone with an active construction programme, it is not generally open to casual visitors. Geraldton's support facilities and outreach programmes are the best starting point for anyone wanting to learn more about the project locally.

See your named star from here

SKA-Low is designed to map the sky in extraordinary detail across a vast area of Western Australia, the same broad sky in which a star named through Star Register has its own fixed coordinates. Check the catalogue to see where your named star falls.