Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory

The 26-metre diameter radio telescope is the first telescope built at the DRAO. It was completed in time for the observatory's official opening in 1960. It is a prime-focus, equatorially mounted telescope with a helium-cooled cryogenic receiver that offers exceptional sensitivity from 900 to 1800 MHz. The telescope was dedicated to John Galt, one of the first DRAO employees and a Canadian radio astronomy pioneer.

The Synthesis Telescope is a linear array of 7 small antennas that operate in unison, forming a single large-diameter telescope. It is used for high-resolution, wide-field imaging of the radio sky, and is particularly well suited to studying the interstellar medium, the gas and plasma that lie between the stars, both in the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies.

The John A. Galt Telescope and Synthesis Telescope were the primary sources of data for the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey, which was observed between 1995 and 2009.

Canada is a world leader in the radio observations of the Sun, expanding our knowledge of solar behaviour since 1947. The DRAO's solar radio flux monitor is a fully automated space weather monitoring facility. The primary data product is one of the most widely used indicators of solar activity and is known internationally as the 10.7 cm solar radio flux, or F10.7. These radio telescopes make daily measurements of solar radio emissions, which are used by industrial organizations and government agencies around the world to predict the impacts of solar activity on our world.

The Dish Verification Antenna 2 (DVA2) was designed and built at the DRAO, using the same technology as composite materials for boats. It uses a one-piece, molded composite reflector, which was designed and built on site, coupled with prototype receivers developed internationally for the SKA. Originally intended to be a high-performance testbed for next-generation radio telescopes, the 15-m DVA2 is now fully equipped as a radio telescope and has completed a survey of the entire sky in the 350 to 1050 MHz frequency range.

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is Canada's largest radio telescope. It is an international collaboration led by the University of British Columbia, McGill University and the University of Toronto. CHIME has no moving parts, but the Earth's rotation allows the telescope to map all of Canada's visible sky every day. CHIME was designed to survey atomic hydrogen from the largest volume of the Universe to date, collecting radio emissions between 400 and 800 MHz. It has 4 100-metre by 20-metre cylinders and an array of 512 radio receivers along each focus. Its high-power digital data processor system receives 2,048 inputs.

The Canadian Hydrogen Observatory and Radio-transient Detector (CHORD) is currently under construction. It is an international collaboration led by McGill University, the University of Toronto and the NRC. Building on the success of CHIME, CHORD will have 640 antennas, each with a 6-metre diameter dish. The DRAO will host the main array composed of 512 antennas. CHORD will also have 2 distant outrigger stations with 64 antennas each. CHORD will collect radio emissions from the Universe over the range of 300 to 1500 MHz.

The Canadian Galactic Emission Mapper (CGEM) is led by the University of British Columbia. The project is nearing completion of a single 4-metre antenna operating over 8-10 GHz, which will continuously scan the sky and provide important calibration information for the CHIME and CHORD surveys.

A relative ionospheric opacity (RIO) antenna, known as a "riometer," is operated by Natural Resources Canada at 30 MHz to monitor changing conditions in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere during periods of solar activity. These changes can impact long-distance radio communications, such as those used by aviation, maritime and emergency response systems. Alerts of radio "blackouts" are issued to users based on the riometer measurements.