Latest Commissioning Update reflects successful BETA activities

CAPTION. Credit: CSIRO

Just one of the recent commissioning results
feautred in the latest ASKAP Commissioning
Update; c
lick on the image for more detail.

8 August 2014

Fantastic results continue to stream out from the six-antenna ASKAP engineering test array at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, with latest data featured in the new edition of the ASKAP Commissioning Update.

The Commissioning Update is a regular newsletter reporting on ASKAP activities and aimed at the astronomical community, highlighting challenges and bugs as well as new results and software. The latest edition reflects the steady stream of commissioning data that continues to come from the Boolardy Engineering Test Array (known as BETA) – an array of the first six ASKAP antennas installed with Mk I phased array feed receivers at the MRO.

Thanks to weekly ‘busy days’, the ASKAP Commissioning and Early Science (ACES) team has continued to ramp up the commissioning efforts for the BETA telescope, producing a number of ‘firsts’ for ASKAP.

Such results already seen include continuum images, a spectral line data cube, a widefield image of the sky, as well as demonstrations of the instrument’s imaging potential and its ability to probe a large range of redshift space.

Members of the ASKAP Survey Science Teams (SSTs) are also getting involved, with commissioning data already made available for the teams to analyse.

Recent results featured in this Commissioning Update show excellent progress made by the ACES team with pulsar monitoring, Galactic emission and HI in galaxies, as well as investigations into polarisation and VLBI with an ASKAP phased array feed receiver.

Download the latest edition at the ASKAP Commissioning Update page or from the Australian SKA website. To receive future releases please email Lisa Harvey-Smith, ASKAP Project Scientist, to subscribe.

Back to Latest ASKAP News page.

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