Low-Frequency Imaging of Fields at High Galactic Latitude with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 Element Prototype

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a new low-frequency, wide-field-of-view radio interferometer under development at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. We have used a 32 element MWA prototype interferometer (MWA-32T) to observe two 50 degrees diameter fields in the s...

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Main Authors:	Williams, C., Hewitt, J., Levine, A., de Oliveira-Costa, A., Bowman, Judd, Briggs, Frank, Gaensler, B., Hernquist, Lars, Mitchell, D., Morales, Miguel, Sethi, S., Subrahmanyan, R., Sadler, E., Arcus, Wayne, Barnes, David, Bernardi, G., Bunton, John, Cappallo, Roger, Crosse, B., Corey, Brian., Deshpande, Avinash, DeSouza, Ludi, Emrich, D., Goeke, Robert, Greenhill, L., Hazelton, Bryna, Herne, David, Kaplan, D., Kasper, Justin, Kincaid, Barton, Koenig, R., Kratzenberg, Eric, Lonsdale, Colin, Lynch, Mervyn, McWhirter, S., Morgan, Edward, Oberoi, Divya, Ord, Stephen, Pathikulangara, Joseph, Prabu, T., Remillard, Ron, Rogers, Alan, Roshi, Anish, Salah, J., Sault, R., Shankar, N Udaya, Srivani, K., Stevens, J., Tingay, Steven, Wayth, Randall, Waterson, Mark, Webster, Rachel, Whitney, Alan, Williams, A., Wyithe, J.
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Institute of Physics Publishing, Inc. 2012
Subjects:	methods data analysis first stars reionization surveys interferometers instrumentation dark ages
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/30696

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author	Williams, C. Hewitt, J. Levine, A. de Oliveira-Costa, A. Bowman, Judd Briggs, Frank Gaensler, B. Hernquist, Lars Mitchell, D. Morales, Miguel Sethi, S. Subrahmanyan, R. Sadler, E. Arcus, Wayne Barnes, David Bernardi, G. Bunton, John Cappallo, Roger Crosse, B. Corey, Brian. Deshpande, Avinash DeSouza, Ludi Emrich, D. Goeke, Robert Greenhill, L. Hazelton, Bryna Herne, David Kaplan, D. Kasper, Justin Kincaid, Barton Koenig, R. Kratzenberg, Eric Lonsdale, Colin Lynch, Mervyn McWhirter, S. Morgan, Edward Oberoi, Divya Ord, Stephen Pathikulangara, Joseph Prabu, T. Remillard, Ron Rogers, Alan Roshi, Anish Salah, J. Sault, R. Shankar, N Udaya Srivani, K. Stevens, J. Tingay, Steven Wayth, Randall Waterson, Mark Webster, Rachel Whitney, Alan Williams, A. Wyithe, J.
author_facet	Williams, C. Hewitt, J. Levine, A. de Oliveira-Costa, A. Bowman, Judd Briggs, Frank Gaensler, B. Hernquist, Lars Mitchell, D. Morales, Miguel Sethi, S. Subrahmanyan, R. Sadler, E. Arcus, Wayne Barnes, David Bernardi, G. Bunton, John Cappallo, Roger Crosse, B. Corey, Brian. Deshpande, Avinash DeSouza, Ludi Emrich, D. Goeke, Robert Greenhill, L. Hazelton, Bryna Herne, David Kaplan, D. Kasper, Justin Kincaid, Barton Koenig, R. Kratzenberg, Eric Lonsdale, Colin Lynch, Mervyn McWhirter, S. Morgan, Edward Oberoi, Divya Ord, Stephen Pathikulangara, Joseph Prabu, T. Remillard, Ron Rogers, Alan Roshi, Anish Salah, J. Sault, R. Shankar, N Udaya Srivani, K. Stevens, J. Tingay, Steven Wayth, Randall Waterson, Mark Webster, Rachel Whitney, Alan Williams, A. Wyithe, J.
author_sort	Williams, C.
building	Curtin Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
description	The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a new low-frequency, wide-field-of-view radio interferometer under development at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. We have used a 32 element MWA prototype interferometer (MWA-32T) to observe two 50 degrees diameter fields in the southern sky, covering a total of similar to 2700 deg(2), in order to evaluate the performance of the MWA-32T, to develop techniques for epoch of reionization experiments, and to make measurements of astronomical foregrounds. We developed a calibration and imaging pipeline for the MWA-32T, and used it to produce similar to 15' angular resolution maps of the two fields in the 110-200 MHz band. We perform a blind source extraction using these confusion-limited images, and detect 655 sources at high significance with an additional 871 lower significance source candidates. We compare these sources with existing low-frequency radio surveys in order to assess the MWA-32T system performance, wide-field analysis algorithms, and catalog quality. Our source catalog is found to agree well with existing low-frequency surveys in these regions of the sky and with statistical distributions of point sources derived from Northern Hemisphere surveys; it represents one of the deepest surveys to date of this sky field in the 110-200 MHz band.
first_indexed	2025-11-14T08:20:08Z
format	Journal Article
id	curtin-20.500.11937-30696
institution	Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category	Local University
last_indexed	2025-11-14T08:20:08Z
publishDate	2012
publisher	Institute of Physics Publishing, Inc.
recordtype	eprints
repository_type	Digital Repository
spelling	curtin-20.500.11937-306962017-09-13T16:08:11Z Low-Frequency Imaging of Fields at High Galactic Latitude with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 Element Prototype Williams, C. Hewitt, J. Levine, A. de Oliveira-Costa, A. Bowman, Judd Briggs, Frank Gaensler, B. Hernquist, Lars Mitchell, D. Morales, Miguel Sethi, S. Subrahmanyan, R. Sadler, E. Arcus, Wayne Barnes, David Bernardi, G. Bunton, John Cappallo, Roger Crosse, B. Corey, Brian. Deshpande, Avinash DeSouza, Ludi Emrich, D. Goeke, Robert Greenhill, L. Hazelton, Bryna Herne, David Kaplan, D. Kasper, Justin Kincaid, Barton Koenig, R. Kratzenberg, Eric Lonsdale, Colin Lynch, Mervyn McWhirter, S. Morgan, Edward Oberoi, Divya Ord, Stephen Pathikulangara, Joseph Prabu, T. Remillard, Ron Rogers, Alan Roshi, Anish Salah, J. Sault, R. Shankar, N Udaya Srivani, K. Stevens, J. Tingay, Steven Wayth, Randall Waterson, Mark Webster, Rachel Whitney, Alan Williams, A. Wyithe, J. methods data analysis first stars reionization surveys interferometers instrumentation dark ages The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a new low-frequency, wide-field-of-view radio interferometer under development at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. We have used a 32 element MWA prototype interferometer (MWA-32T) to observe two 50 degrees diameter fields in the southern sky, covering a total of similar to 2700 deg(2), in order to evaluate the performance of the MWA-32T, to develop techniques for epoch of reionization experiments, and to make measurements of astronomical foregrounds. We developed a calibration and imaging pipeline for the MWA-32T, and used it to produce similar to 15' angular resolution maps of the two fields in the 110-200 MHz band. We perform a blind source extraction using these confusion-limited images, and detect 655 sources at high significance with an additional 871 lower significance source candidates. We compare these sources with existing low-frequency radio surveys in order to assess the MWA-32T system performance, wide-field analysis algorithms, and catalog quality. Our source catalog is found to agree well with existing low-frequency surveys in these regions of the sky and with statistical distributions of point sources derived from Northern Hemisphere surveys; it represents one of the deepest surveys to date of this sky field in the 110-200 MHz band. 2012 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/30696 10.1088/0004-637X/755/1/47 Institute of Physics Publishing, Inc. fulltext
spellingShingle	methods data analysis first stars reionization surveys interferometers instrumentation dark ages Williams, C. Hewitt, J. Levine, A. de Oliveira-Costa, A. Bowman, Judd Briggs, Frank Gaensler, B. Hernquist, Lars Mitchell, D. Morales, Miguel Sethi, S. Subrahmanyan, R. Sadler, E. Arcus, Wayne Barnes, David Bernardi, G. Bunton, John Cappallo, Roger Crosse, B. Corey, Brian. Deshpande, Avinash DeSouza, Ludi Emrich, D. Goeke, Robert Greenhill, L. Hazelton, Bryna Herne, David Kaplan, D. Kasper, Justin Kincaid, Barton Koenig, R. Kratzenberg, Eric Lonsdale, Colin Lynch, Mervyn McWhirter, S. Morgan, Edward Oberoi, Divya Ord, Stephen Pathikulangara, Joseph Prabu, T. Remillard, Ron Rogers, Alan Roshi, Anish Salah, J. Sault, R. Shankar, N Udaya Srivani, K. Stevens, J. Tingay, Steven Wayth, Randall Waterson, Mark Webster, Rachel Whitney, Alan Williams, A. Wyithe, J. Low-Frequency Imaging of Fields at High Galactic Latitude with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 Element Prototype
title	Low-Frequency Imaging of Fields at High Galactic Latitude with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 Element Prototype
title_full	Low-Frequency Imaging of Fields at High Galactic Latitude with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 Element Prototype
title_fullStr	Low-Frequency Imaging of Fields at High Galactic Latitude with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 Element Prototype
title_full_unstemmed	Low-Frequency Imaging of Fields at High Galactic Latitude with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 Element Prototype
title_short	Low-Frequency Imaging of Fields at High Galactic Latitude with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 Element Prototype
title_sort	low-frequency imaging of fields at high galactic latitude with the murchison widefield array 32 element prototype
topic	methods data analysis first stars reionization surveys interferometers instrumentation dark ages
url	http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/30696

Low-Frequency Imaging of Fields at High Galactic Latitude with the Murchison Widefield Array 32 Element Prototype

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