First look at Galactic plane with MWA

Check out this MWA image of the galactic plane from David Kaplan (UWM). The image of 150MHz radiation covers 80 degrees wide and has a resolution of about 5 arcminutes. At about 125million pixels its a bit large to digest, so I’ve uploaded it to Gigapan, where you can pan and zoom ala google maps. Most of the circular things are supernova remnants, the imprints of ancient supernova explosions impressed on the galaxies plasma and magnetic fields.

This is just a sneak preview of the imaging capability of this fully operational battle station.

Oct_07_galplane_121_gc_lowres
Low res thumbnail. Click image for full map at Gigapan.
Oct7_MWA_galzoom
A tiny fraction of the full resolution image. Look at all the supernova remnants! Click image for full map at Gigapan.