As part of ASKAP commissioning and early science activities, the ASKAP team is holding weekly ‘busy days’ to aid ASKAP verification work and progress commissioning of the Boolardy Engineering Test Array (BETA).

Working together on a wide variety of investigations into the performance of BETA – the first six ASKAP antennas at the MRO to be installed with CSIRO’s innovative phased array feed (PAF) receivers – many discussions are underway about data viewing and analysis facilities, and familiarisation exercises with the supercomputing environment.

Extended practical sessions are also being held to focus on data analysis in packages such as ASKAPsoft, the dedicated processing software developed by the ASKAP team. Progress is also being made on the standard pipeline plots for data visualisation, and developing new results using the six-element BETA telescope.

Says ASKAP Project Scientist Lisa Harvey-Smith of the busy days, “It’s encouraging to have everyone working as a team in the Science Operations Centre; sharing ideas and data is a crucial part of developing solutions to the challenges we face while commissioning BETA, and ultimately ASKAP.”

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