page_title: Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory
section_title: Research
hierarchical_section_title: Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory / Research
caption_attribution_description: English: MeerKAT prototype dish at Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory.
context_page_description: The Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory is a radio astronomy observatory, located in a natural bowl of hills at Hartebeesthoek just south of the Magaliesberg mountain range, Gauteng, South Africa, about 50 km west of Johannesburg. It is a National Research Facility run by South Africa's National Research Foundation. HartRAO was the only major radio astronomy observatory in Africa until the construction of the KAT-7 test bed for the future MeerKAT array.
context_section_description: HartRAO is used for continuum radiometry, spectroscopy, pulsar timing and interferometry. It works together with radio telescopes in other continents as well as the orbiting radio telescopes HALCA (VSOP project) and Spektr-R (RadioAstron) in order to perform Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations.
  HartRAO is an associate member of the European VLBI Network, but also operates with the Australia Telescope Long Baseline Array, the Asia-Pacific Telescope, the United States Very Long Baseline Array and the Global Array.
  HartRAO also runs a Space Geodesy programme using VLBI, Satellite laser ranging and the Global Positioning System. Development work of a Lunar Laser Ranger (LLR) has commenced, based on a 1 m optical telescope. The LLR system will use a 100 mJ, 20 Hz, 80 ps pulse length laser to range to corner cube reflector arrays on the Moon.
  The observatory also provides students and lecturers from South African universities the facilities and opportunities to perform research.
caption: MeerKAT prototype dish
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