Primary Beam Shape Calibration from Mosaicked Observations

Details Primary Beam Shape Calibration from Mosaicked Observations Primary Beam Shape Calibration from Mosaicked Observations

Jan 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21540305h&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #403.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.224

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Image quality in mosaicked observations is strongly dependent on the accuracy with which the antenna primary beam is calibrated. The next generation of radio telescope arrays such as the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) and the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) have key science goals that involve making large mosaicked observations filled with bright point sources. We present a new method for calibration of the primary beam shape that uses the multiple redundant observations of these bright sources in the mosaic. The method has an analytical solution for simple Gaussian beam shapes but can also be applied to more complex beam shapes through least-squares minimization. One major benefit of this simple, conceptually clean method is that it saves precious telescope time by making use of archival science data, instead of requiring custom observations. We apply the method to data obtained with the ATA, using observations from both the ATATS and PIGSS surveys (performed at 1.43 GHz and 3.14 GHz, respectively). We find that the beam's assumed and calculated full width at half maximum (FWHM) are consistent at the two different survey frequencies. We also attempt to constrain both the beam's angle and ellipticity.

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