The XXL team have observed two large areas of
sky (25 square degrees each, or more than 100 times the area of the moon) in
the largest program ever with the XMM-Newton X-Ray Observatory. As part of the
follow-up observations from the ground a team of astronomers used the ATCA to
image the XXL-S. About five square degrees was covered to 45 microJy rms
sensitivity during pilot observations. See the
upcoming paper.
The figure above shows the full image (left) with the 81 ATCA pointings marked
as green crosses. A zoom of one of the radio galaxies in the field is shown on
the right. Astronomers are now analysing ATCA observations of the full field,
and are using it to study the formation and evolution of active super-massive
black holes and how they relate to their host galaxies.
