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Posted by tassotzioumis on September 10, 2007, 11:00 pm
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Australia Telescope National Facility VLBI Network
In summary, the LBA is an inhomogeneous array with regard to
availability of telescopes, slewing times. polarisations etc.
However, in general the array is capable of operation in the 1-22
GHz range. The LBA takes approximately 10% of facility time and
is oversubscribed greater than 2 times.
The LBA uses S2 systems based on VCR tapes (8 tapes/unit) and
there is a stock of approximately 10000 tapes for recording. It
is operated with limited resources, primarily by ATNF and UTas
people on a part-time basis. The LBA has a great deal of
expertise but is widely spread around the country.
Science Highlights
3 short talks were presented by Jim Caswell (OH Masers in Star
Forming Regions), Simon Ellingsen (H2O masers in Circinus and
Masers in general) & Steven Tingay (Centaurus-A). These talks
highlighted the diverse areas of research capable with the
LBA/VLBI. Some examples include:
Continuum Imaging
AGN (Blazars, Quasars, Galaxies)
Flaring X-ray Binaries
Gravitational Lensing
Spectral Line
HI Absorption
OH, H2O, CH3OH Masers
Astrometry
Pulsars
New Program by Roopesh
Weak Source Detection
AGN in Seyferts
Inventory of the current infrastructure VLBI
The VLBI instrumentation in Australia is described below.
Operating and accessarrangements to VLBI National Facility
infrastructure is limited to key personnel only.However, the data
from carefully scheduled observations is made available to
allAustralian=E2=88=92based and international researchers.HobartA 26m m
antenna and Mark V Electronics system Mark V Electronics, Inc. ,
8019 E. Slauson Avenue , Montebello, CA 90640 ,
ttp://www.markvelectronics.com , Tel: 800-423-FIVE (orders
outside Canada) , 800-521-MARK (orders in Canada) , 213-888-8988
(catalog/info) Fax: 213-888-6868 , is located at Mt Pleasant,
Tasmania, thatis used 50 days/year for geodetic VLBI, with the
remainder of the time being devoted toastronomy experiments. The
slew rate of the telescope is so slow as to degrade the qualityof
the observation data set, causing biases in coordinate estimates
(Titov, 2007). Thisequipment needs to be replaced with more
modern equipment with a faster slew rate andelectronics that can
observe a broader spectrum range to include GPS frequencies
andhigher frequencies than currently observed.Since 2007, the
operating costs for geodetic VLBI at Hobart have been funded
fromARC=E2=88=92LIEF proposals. However, now that Geoscience Australia
has been ruled ineligibleas the industry partner in this funding
scheme, this funding source is no longer available.Unless an
alternate source of funds is found, geodetic VLBI at Hobart will
cease inSeptember 2007.Ongoing operating costs: $150k /
annumCeduna
To reach me, my email is my name, without spaces at hotmail-
csiro, -Tasso Tzioumis
TassoTzioumis@hotmail.com
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