Thermal behavior of millimeter wavelength radio telescopes

Abstract

The passive and/or active thermal control of significant structural components, for instance the backstructure and the feed legs, of the IRAM 15-m MM and 30-m MM wavelengths telescopes is discussed, and their thermal behavior is illustrated. The design of the thermal protection was supported by dynamic time-dependent model calculations, which are explained and compared with in situ recorded temperatures of the telescope components.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>