Journal article
Low-frequency observations of the moon with the murchison widefield array
B McKinley, F Briggs, DL Kaplan, LJ Greenhill, G Bernardi, JD Bowman, A De Oliveira-Costa, SJ Tingay, BM Gaensler, D Oberoi, M Johnston-Hollitt, W Arcus, D Barnes, JD Bunton, RJ Cappallo, BE Corey, A Deshpande, L Desouza, D Emrich, R Goeke Show all
Astronomical Journal | Published : 2013
Abstract
A new generation of low-frequency radio telescopes is seeking to observe the redshifted 21cm signal from the epoch of reionization (EoR), requiring innovative methods of calibration and imaging to overcome the difficulties of wide-field low-frequency radio interferometry. Precise calibration will be required to separate the expected small EoR signal from the strong foreground emission at the frequencies of interest between 80 and 300MHz. The Moon may be useful as a calibration source for detection of the EoR signature, as it should have a smooth and predictable thermal spectrum across the frequency band of interest. Initial observations of the Moon with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 tile ..
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Grants
Awarded by National Science Foundation
Funding Acknowledgements
This work uses data obtained from the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory. We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji people as the traditional owners of the Observatory site. Support came from the U.S. National Science Foundation (grants AST-0457585, AST-0908884, and PHY-0835713), the Australian Research Council (grants LE0775621 and LE0882938), the Centre for All-Sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO-an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence, funded by grant CE110001020), the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (grant FA9550-0510247), the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the MIT School of Science, the Raman Research Institute, the Australian National University, the iVEC Petabyte Data Store, the Initiative in Innovative Computing and NVIDIA sponsored Center for Excellence at Harvard, and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, a Joint Venture of Curtin University of Technology and The University of Western Australia, funded by the Western Australian State government. Funding support for the MWA project has also been provided by the Australian Federal government via the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and Astronomy Australia Limited, under contract to Curtin University of Technology.