The first ever 36-beam image has been produced during commissioning activities with CSIRO’s ASKAP telescope, covering 30 square degrees with over 1300 sources.
The radio image was produced using the nine ASKAP antennas recently installed with the new Mk II Phased Array Feed (PAF) receiver systems. The PAFs were configured with 36 dual-polarisation beams arranged in a 6×6 square footprint and rotated on the sky. The team observed a single field in the Apus constellation for 11 hours, with 48 MHz of bandwidth centred at 939.5 MHz.