Astronomy and Astrophysics
Aims: This paper describes the BINGO radio telescope, including the current status of the optics, receiver, observational strategy, calibration, and the site.
Methods: BINGO has been carefully designed to minimize systematics, being a transit instrument with no moving dishes and 28 horns operating in the frequency range 980 ≤ ν ≤ 1260 MHz. Comprehensive laboratory tests were conducted for many of the BINGO subsystems and the prototypes of the receiver chain, horn, polarizer, magic tees, and transitions have been successfully tested between 2018-2020. The survey was designed to cover ∼13% of the sky, with the primary mirror pointing at declination δ = −15°. The telescope will see an instantaneous declination strip of 14.75°.
Results: The results of the prototype tests closely meet those obtained during the modeling process, suggesting BINGO will perform according to our expectations. After one year of observations with a 60% duty cycle and 28 horns, BINGO should achieve an expected sensitivity of 102 μK per 9.33 MHz frequency channel, one polarization, and be able to measure the H I power spectrum in a competitive time frame.

The general goal of this project is to determine and characterize the spatial and spectral variations in the temperature and polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background in angular scales from several arcminutes to several degrees. The primordial matter density fluctuations which originated the structure in the matter distribution of the present