2020 was the year of introduction of the Ukrainian new generation radio telescope RT-32 into the experimental operation. The test results of maser hydrogen and hydroxyl lines obtained during the experimental operation confirmed the correctness of the calculations and technological solutions of Ukrainian scientists and manufacturers Consortium. One of the further development directions of RT-32 as a radio astronomical research tool is to increase the accuracy of pointing the radio telescope to radio astronomical sources. One of the further development directions of RT-32 as a radio astronomical research tool is to increase the accuracy of pointing the radio telescope to astronomical radio sources. The latter is to be achieved by automating the processes of guidance error matrices formation and their integration during the observations. The formation of such a matrix presupposes taking into account the structural features of the antenna system and weather condition. The paper presents the results of geodetic measurements of the antenna system surface on different elevation angle, construction of the 3D model of the reflector. The method of constructing the error matrix, which at this stage of research provides the necessary simplicity of perception and interpretation of the obtained results by the human operator, is proposed. The results of the developed method verification using reference radio sources are given and the error matrices of elevation and azimuth pointing (dimension 81x81 elements) obtained with the use of said method are presented. The introduction of the results presented in the article into the radio telescope control system allowed increasing the accuracy of RT-32 radio telescope pointing in the C- and K- bands to the value of ~36″. This work partially was supported by Latvian Council of Science project "Joint Latvian-Ukrainian study of peculiar radio galaxy “Perseus A” in radio and optical bands. Nr: lzp-2020/2-0121".
On March 15th, 2021, scientists of the National Space Facilities Control and Tests Center and the Radio Astronomical Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine carried out preliminary observations with the Ukrainian new generation radio telescope RT-32 (Zolochiv, Lviv region). The extragalactic radiation of radio galaxy 3C84 (Perseus-A), masers from the galactic molecular cloud W3, radio emission of methanol maser from the galactic radio source G188.946 + 0.886 were observed and successfully recorded. Observations were performed as training in the framework of preparation for the launch of a joint Ukrainian-Latvian radio astronomy project lzp-2020/2-0121. The results of the observations confirmed the world level of RT-32 radio telescope characteristics, the efficiency of the primary error matrix and revealed several shortcomings in the functioning of the tracking system. It was found that the primary tracking error matrix has insufficient discreteness and contains errors of the first and second types. In the article, we present a method of automatic construction of the radio telescope error matrix according to the data of a radiometric receiver and receivers-recorders. The method of construction provides automatic processing of the obtained radiometric data. The results of verification of the developed method using the reference radio sources of different types and the elements of tracking errors’ matrix by the elevation and azimuth obtained when using it are presented. The results obtained with the proposed method were included in the radio telescope control system and allowed us to increase the aiming accuracy of the RT-32 radio telescope.
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