A VLBI experiment using a remote atomic clock via a coherent fibre link.

We describe a VLBI experiment in which, for the first time, the clock reference is delivered from a National Metrology Institute to a radio telescope using a coherent fibre link 550 km long. The experiment consisted of a 24-hours long geodetic campaign, performed by a network of European telescopes; in one of those (Medicina, Italy) the local clock was alternated with a signal generated from an optical comb slaved to a fibre-disseminated optical signal. The quality of the results obtained with this facility and with the local clock is similar: interferometric fringes were detected throughout the whole 24-hours period and it was possible to obtain a solution whose residuals are comparable to those obtained with the local clock.

Initial Results Obtained with the First TWIN VLBI Radio Telescope at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell.

Geodetic Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) uses radio telescopes as sensor networks to determine Earth orientation parameters and baseline vectors between the telescopes. The TWIN Telescope Wettzell 1 (TTW1), the first of the new 13.2 m diameter telescope pair at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell, Germany, is currently in its commissioning phase.

Dust Emission from High-Redshift QSOs.

We present detections of emission at 250 GHz (1.2 mm) from two high-redshift QSOs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey sample using the bolometer array at the IRAM 30 m telescope. The sources are SDSSp 015048.