This page contains details of ASKAP’s original system design parameters, survey speed and sensitivity.

    For details of measured performance of the final system refer to the paper Australian square kilometre array pathfinder: I. system description (Hotan et al. 2021).

    ASKAP System Parameters

    The system parameters for ASKAP are given in the table below:

    Number of dishes36
    Dish diameter (m)12
    Dish area (sq m)113
    Total collecting area (sq m)4072
    Aperture efficiency0.8
    System temperature (K)50
    Field-of-view (deg2)30
    Frequency range (MHz)700-1800
    Bandwidth (MHz)300
    Maximum channels16384
    Maximum baseline (km)6

    Notes to the table: The system temperature and aperture efficiency have yet to be determined and the numbers above are indicative only. The field-of-view is independent of observing frequency.

    Details and performance of the ASKAP array configurations can be found on the Array Configuration page.

    Survey Speed and Sensitivity

    The survey speed and sensitivities tables from the configuration document are repeated here:

    Parameter10”18”30”90”180”units
    Continuum survey speed (300 MHz, 100 uJy)2203612675417deg2/hr
    Line survey speed (100 kHz, 5 mJy)1843012234514deg2/hr
    Surface brightness survey speed (5 kHz, 1 K)––1.11894deg2/hr

    Table 1: Indicative survey speeds for different angular resolutions under the assumption of a 50 K system temperature and an aperture efficiency of 0.8.

    Parameter10”18”30”90”180”units
    Continuum sensitivity (300 MHz)37293474132µJy/bm
    Line sensitivity (100 kHz)2.11.61.94.17.3mJy/bm
    Surface brightness sensitivity (5 kHz)––5.21.30.56K

    Table 2: Indicative sensitivity for 1 hour observation at different angular resolutions, assuming 50 K system temperature and an aperture efficiency of 0.8.

    Further Information

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