Hercules A

Hercules A
Radio-Optical View of the Galaxy Hercules A - Many thanks to: NASA, ESA, S. Baum and C. O'Dea (RIT), R. Perley and W. Cotton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Near real time images of the whole sky, at 74 MHz, from the Long Wavelength Array First Station, near the center of the Very Large Array in New Mexico

"Catching big waves with small blades"

I refer to:
http://www.phys.unm.edu/~lwa/lwatv.html
The images update every few seconds, with a 30 second processing delay.

On the left is a total intensity image, on the right a circular polarized image. The dashed line marks the plane of the Milky Way. The images may show totally unexpected transient radio sources and interference. There is an archive of daily movies (not always available), starting September 2011.


Below, with many thanks to Gregg Taylor, University of New Mexico, and the Long Wavelength Array Collaboration, some slides from a recent presentation at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin Texas:





The James Clerk Maxwell 15 meter sub millimeter telescope backside


Friday, May 25, 2012

The Square Kilometer Array will be hosted by Australia and South Africa

I refer to:
http://www.skatelescope.org/news/dual-site-agreed-square-kilometre-array-telescope/

"... 25 May 2012, Amsterdam, the Netherlands – The Members of the SKA Organisation today agreed on a dual site solution for the Square Kilometre Array telescope, a crucial step towards building the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope.

The ASKAP and MeerKAT precursor dishes will be incorporated into Phase I of the SKA which will deliver more science and will maximise on investments already made by both Australia and South Africa. The majority of the members were in favour of a dual-site implementation model for SKA. The members noted the report from the SKA Site Advisory Committee that both sites were well suited to hosting the SKA and that the report provided justification for the relative advantages and disadvantages of both locations, but that they identified Southern Africa as the preferred site.

The members also received advice from the working group set up to look at dual site options. The majority of SKA dishes in Phase 1 will be built in South Africa, combined with MeerKAT. Further SKA dishes will be added to the ASKAP array in Australia. All the dishes and the mid frequency aperture arrays for Phase II of the SKA will be built in Southern Africa while the low frequency aperture array antennas for Phase I and II will be built in Australia / New Zealand ..."

Sunday, May 20, 2012

The Murchison Widefield Array is under construction

The MWA is an international collaboration between Institutions from Australia, India, New Zealand, and the United States of America:

http://www.mwatelescope.org/info/contacts.html


Australia National University
Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization
Curtin University of Technology
Melbourne University
Swinburne University of Technology
University of Sydney
University of Western Australia
Raman Research Institute
Victoria University of Wellington
MIT Haystack Observatory
MIT Kavli Institute
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Observing at frequencies from 80 to 300 MHz and located in the radio-quiet Western Australia Outback, the MWA will observe with unprecedented sensitivity to discover low-frequency radio phenomena that have never been seen before.