Paul Hurley (Western Sydney University)

Paul Hurley Colloquium: Accurate, efficient imaging and beamforming on the sphere

Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

In this talk, I will present Bluebild, an efficient algorithm to reconstruct continuous sky images directly on the celestial sphere. The basic idea leverages an analytic, operator-based framework to produce continuous images that can be sampled up to the fundamental limit of the telescope. Unlike discrete-based methods, it produces an accurate least-square estimate of the underlying sky. Moreover, images are split in a multi-scale energy decomposition to give many different viewpoints. Bluebild is fast and easily parallelisable, and images can be shown in real-time as observations progress. I will then introduce a form of beamforming especially suited for improve accuracy while reducing data flow in ASKAP.