Event starts:
Sun, 18/09/2011 (All day)
Event ends:
Fri, 30/09/2011 (All day)
The subject of this workshop will be the modeling and measurement of station beamshapes, for new and existing radio telescopes. Important issues are stability, frequency dependence, polarization, sidelobes, and the pros and cons of sky rotation and off-axis feeds.
The workshop is timely because it has become increasingly clear that, in order to achieve the advertised wide-field performance, station beamshapes will have to be measured continuously during the observations. Fortunately, a typical field appears to contain enough bright compact "calibration beacons" to allow this, at least below 1500 MHz. In addition, the software now exists to exploit this fundamental information.
The workshop format is somewhat unusual in several respects. It is relatively long (2 weeks), relatively small (20 participants) and very hands-on. The format, and the reasoning behind it is explained in some more detail below. In addition, some supporting documents may be found via:
http://www.astron.nl/meqwiki/ReferencePapers
http://www.astron.nl/meqwiki/RadioAstronomyMeasurementEquations
Measuring Station Beamshapes, as a function of time and frequency, and in full polarization
Although it is of course a secondary consideration, the venue will be in a nice hotel/resort on the south coast of Portugal. Prices are 62 Euros for a single room, including breakfast and lunch. Some financial support is available to selected participants. If you need support, please contact the SOC/LOC as soon as possible. Note that there is no registration fee
If you, or some of your group, are interested in participating in this workshop, please register your interest. Prospective participants will become part of the preparation process, from which the final group will emerge between now and July 1st.
We greatly look forward to a stimulating and successful workshop, including the periods before and after.
If there are further questions please contact noordam [at] astron [dot] nl
