Introduction

The calibration process can be somewhat complicated, with several possible paths. We will describe only the main paths here. It is strongly recommended that you follow them. If you stray off them, there is usually a way ahead, but it may not be simple.

We will describe the calibration of data either with two (XX, YY) or all four (XX, YY, XY, YX) polarisation products. However when there are only two products, a number of the steps involved (usually involving gpcal) can be skipped.

This chapter discusses calibration with ATCA data loaded using Miriad. There are differences if the data were initially loaded with AIPS - see Appendix D for more details. Miriad's software supports calibration of a fairly general interferometric model, including VLA and WSRT polarimetric and non-polarimetric data. Calibration of these is not described here, and is left as an exercise for the enthusiastic reader.

Figure 12.1 gives a flow chart of the steps typically involved.

Figure 12.1: Flow chart to prepare for calibration in Miriad.