Qinhai observation station is located in Delinha, the third largest city of Qinhai Province on the beautiful Tibetan Plateau at approximately 3200m elevation with latitude 32°44'.4N and longitude 97°33'. 6E. Founded in the earlier 1980s, it is also called Delinha observation station.
The word Delinha is from the Mongolian language and means golden grassland where the Sun rises.
The high elevation, dry atmosphere, and nice weather conditions make Delinha an excellent place for millimeter-wave radio observation.
The primary facility of Qinhai observation station is the 13.7m radio telescope equipped with an indigenously developed SIS superconductor receiver working in the band of 85-115 GHz. The telescope is the only radio facility working in millimeter waveband in China and is fully open to the community. The observations of the spectral lines of CO isotopes, HCO+, SiO, CS, etc and continuum spectra with the telescope are widely used for the study of molecular cloud structure, physical and chemical environment of star formation regions, planet nebula, supernova remnant, molecular line survey, solar continuum radio spectrum and nearby galaxies.
Nowadays, Qinhai station is upgrading the telescope by equipping it with a multi-beam receiver. The telescope will have much more powerful mapping ability when the reform is done.
Apart from the 13.7m radio telescope, Qinhai station is also equipped with some optical telescopes used for the observations of celestial objects in solar system.
