ASKAP correlator reconfiguration creates testing platform for BETA

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.

Added by Flornes Conway-Derley on 2014-02-24