ASKAP continues countdown to full survey science

As the SKA prepares to begin construction, one of its precursor radio telescopes, CSIRO’s Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP), is ramping up science operations and embarking on ground-breaking surveys. Documenting this journey is a key part of ASKAP’s role as an SKA precursor and the telescope team’s most recent publication makes a major contribution to this effort

Available now on ARXIV and soon to be published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, is the ASKAP System Description paper. The paper’s lead author, Dr Aidan Hotan, ASKAP Project Scientist, says the paper outlines technical specifications and some of the critical field experience that contributed to ASKAP’s design revisions.

“At the 2019 SKA Engineering meeting, I reported on our ASKAP commissioning experiences and mentioned that continuous improvement is a necessity, well after construction is complete. More recent experience with ASKAP science operations has highlighted the importance of automated configuration management and observation scheduling, to maximise efficiency. The system paper ties these threads together with a look at how ASKAP currently works, some of the changes we had to make along the way, and future enhancement possibilities,” said Aidan.

ASKAP provides comparatively high-level data products (including calibrated images and source catalogues) and this new paper serves as a key reference for astronomers who have not had the opportunity yet to interact directly with the telescope.

The recently published Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS) shows that ASKAP’s wide field of view can map the mid-frequency radio sky extremely quickly and in great detail, providing the foundation for new discoveries. One of the first papers to use RACS reported the discovery of the most distant radio-loud quasar ever detected.

ASKAP surveys are improving our knowledge of the radio sky at SKA-mid wavelengths. They will lead to new sky models and calibration methods and provide a stepping stone for the research community, by greatly increasing the number of known radio sources. SKA precursor telescopes also provide a steady flow of data into fledgeling SKA Regional Centre developments.

The team hopes that their experience with ASKAP helps to prepare the SKA team for challenges that await. At the same time, ASKAP surveys will inspire a new generation of astronomers and provide data that fuels excitement for the capabilities that the SKA will provide in future.

By Annabelle Young (CSIRO)

The completion of ASKAP’s first all-sky survey (RACS) marks another milestone on our countdown to full survey science – the sequence of steps that prepares ASKAP for its 5-year survey program. The next milestones involve pilot surveys, which are test observations that closely resemble the long-term survey modes.

Credit: CSIRO.