ASU undergrad and AZ Space Grant intern Michael Busch has been stopping by my office this semester, helping me look at MWA cosmology data and learning about radio astronomy. Turns out he’s a Pillar of the Community! Among other things he’s a Residential Assistant, responsible for a passel of undergrads in the newly refurbished Manzanita […]
Here is a composite image of the entire sky in radio frequencies. It shows data from Parkes, Jodrell Bank and Effelsburg (ie the “Haslam map“, technically for you astro nerds the Global Sky Model by Angelica de Oliviera Costa which includes some data from other observations) as well as point sources from the VLA in
Those aren’t stars (radio sky composite) Read More »
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.
First look at Galactic plane with MWA Read More »
A nice composite of Centaurus A (as imaged by PAPER) and the moon to scale. Almost ten times the size of the moon, it really is a remarkable sight. Or would be if we could only see in the radio. For more, see Stefan et al.
Nice PAPER image of Centaurus A Read More »
Paper Title: A Flux Scale for Southern Hemisphere 21cm EoR Experiments arxiv,data,fits If you look at typical catalogs of sources in the southern hemisphere epoch of reionization band you soon realize why measurements often disagree by 20%. Even the brightest sources one would use for calibration are uncertain. As you can see from the plot to
In which PAPER sets the standard Read More »
Title: The precision and accuracy of early Epoch of Reionization foreground models: comparing MWA and PAPER 32-antenna source catalogs This paper compares the fluxes in the first PAPER and MWA catalogs. These sources are the brightest foregrounds in front of the EoR HI emission. Various estimates suggest that we have to subtract these guys to anywhere
Publication: The precision and accuracy of early Epoch of Reionization foreground models Read More »
During this trip we moved another 32 antenna into the grid configuration. This array will be left running over the (southern) Summer until sometime in mid 2013. This should be enough data to make the most sensitive EoR measurement yet! Also: I got to be co-pilot in an airplane! [alpine-phototile-for-picasa-and-google-plus src=”user_album” uid=”109170256040963038320″ ualb=”5856444057462896289″ imgl=”picasa” dl=”1″
PAPER 2012 Deployment Read More »
Today I needed a distraction so I transcoded some PAPER data into sound. It sounds really weird! Cross-posted at asuexplorers.sese.edu
The sound of PAPER Read More »
Title: “A Per-baseline, Delay-spectrum Technique for Accessing the 21 cm Cosmic Reionization Signature” This paper explains the PAPER method for measuring the EoR power spectrum. While some experiments plan on subtracting foregrounds, PAPER will stick to uncontaminated regions of power spectrum space. Narrow field simulations had previously expected this region to have little dependence on
Publication: The PAPER power spectrum method Read More »
Here is a helpful map of the radio sky I have been using to keep track of my MWA and PAPER observing. It has a few of the brightest sources, the seasonal position of the Sun, and what the sky looks like at midnight for each month of the year. Here it is hanging on
Southern hemisphere radio EoR band guide Read More »