A Brief History of the Northern Cross Radio Telescope

The Northern Cross is the first Italian large radio telescope. The original design was a “Mills' cross” type configuration, with two arms of about 1.2Km, aligned in East-West and North-South directions, operating at 408MHz. During its construction, due to lack of funds, the array was rearranged in a T shaped configuration. The goal was to perform a large survey of extragalactic radio sources, identification of their optical counterparts and possible contribution to cosmological research. The aim of this paper is to present some of the most remarkable developments of the Northern Cross radio telescope and depict advancements that were implemented to satisfy the demanding needs of radio astronomers.