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1st of August 2019
RACS -- the Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey
by Aidan Hotan
The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey, RACS, was the ASKAP team's first large-scale attempt at an all-sky survey and most of the data reassuringly appears to be of high quality. The image above compares a typical RACS image to SUMSS and NVSS, the previous best surveys. RACS clearly has superior sensitivity and resolution, meeting our goal of making it the new benchmark in radio continuum surveys around 1 GHz. The experience gained with RACS will help improve the reliability of future survey observations and data processing. Data from the first RACS epoch will be made available as soon as possible, likely starting with the images themselves once suitable quality control has verified the flux scale and astrometry to a quantifiable degree. The images will later be supplemented with source catalogues and eventually large mosaics across multiple tile boundaries, creating a smooth image of the whole survey area as well as a global sky model. More details are given in the July ASKAP Commissioning Update.



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