Following recent successful commissioning activity that produced the first continuum image achieved with ASKAP, the hardware correlator is now being reconfigured at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia.
The ASKAP hardware correlator, which was installed at the MRO in mid-2013, has been used for commissioning activities with the Boolardy Engineering Test Array – or BETA.
Until now, the hardware correlator operated on two simultaneous sub-arrays – with ASKAP Antennas 1-3-6 and Antennas 8-9-15. Reconfiguring the correlator to a 6-element interferometer will create the first stable ASKAP commissioning and testing platform.