The telescope can provide 22880 possible theoretical independent beams and has a field of view of 55.47 degrees (East-West) by 1.8 degrees (North-South). The resolution is around 4-5 arcminutes in the North-South direction, and 4 arcminutes in the East-West direction. While less than the resolution of large optical telescopes, the amount of radiation that can be gathered with the Northern Cross is much greater, proportional to the mirror surface of approximately 27400 square meters. Northern Cross represents the largest UHF-band antenna in the Northern hemisphere, with an aperture efficiency of 60%, making it second in the world, after the Arecibo radio telescope. This allows the Northern Cross to identify and measure extremely faint sources, making the telescope is particularly suitable to extragalactic researches.