GASKAP: Galactic Australian SKA Pathfinder Survey
The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is a next-generation radio telescope currently being constructed in remote West Australia by the CSIRO. ASKAP's large instantaneous field-of-view will allow it to survey the sky much faster than is possible with existing radio telescopes, allowing us to explore the Milky Way and nearby Magellanic clouds in more detail than before. The Galactic ASKAP (GASKAP) survey is a high spectral resolution study of the HI and OH lines in the Milky Way and Magellanic Systems. Compared with existing data, GASKAP will achieve about an order of magnitude improvement in both brightness sensitivity and in angular resolution. GASKAP will detect and map OH masers from evolved stars and star formation regions, diffuse emission from molecular and atomic clouds, HI absorption toward background continuum sources and the structures in the gas that trace the effects of stellar winds and supernova explosions. The Magellanic Clouds will show all these processes as they appear in two other, very different environments. GASKAP will provide stunning images of the interstellar medium that will be indispensible for astronomers working at other wavelengths.  Figure: GASKAP sky coverage in Galactic coordinates.
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