Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2011-03-07
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
7 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of "Astronomy with megastructures: Joint science with the E-ELT and SKA", 10-
Scientific paper
A consortium of universities has recently been formed with the goal of using the decommissioned telecommunications infrastructure at the Goonhilly Earth Station in Cornwall, UK, for astronomical purposes. One particular goal is the introduction of one or more of the ~30-metre parabolic antennas into the existing e-MERLIN radio interferometer. This article introduces this scheme and presents some simulations which quantify the improvements that would be brought to the e-MERLIN system. These include an approximate doubling of the spatial resolution of the array, an increase in its N-S extent with strong implications for imaging the most well-studied equatorial fields, accessible to ESO facilities including ALMA. It also increases the overlap between the e-MERLIN array and the European VLBI Network. We also discuss briefly some niche science areas in which an e-MERLIN array which included a receptor at Goonhilly would be potentially world-leading, in addition to enhancing the existing potential of e-MERLIN in its role as a Square Kilometer Array pathfinder instrument.
Beswick Rob
Garrington Simon T.
Hatchell Jennifer
Heywood Ian
Hoare Melvin G.
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