• LowFrequencyRadioAstronomy

Low Frequency Radio Astronomy

Draft by Richard, for Robert Laing

Proposed topics

• The low frequency window
• Main issues
  • resolution
  • background noise
  • the ionosphere
• Problems with low frequency observations
  • phase corruption due to the ionosphere
  • interference severe at low frequencies
  • difficult to find good calibrators
• Ionospheric effects
• Problems with calibration and imaging
  • calibration as function of the position
  • bandwidth smearing
  • large fields of view and coplanarity
  • multi-field imaging
  • many sources in the field
• Interference
  • variability of ionosphere and its causes
  • spectral line mode observations necessary
  • bandpass calibration
• Low frequency arrays
  • Present (VLA, GMRT...)
  • Near future (LOFAR, LWA...)
• Science at low frequency
  • The low frequency end of the synchrotron radio spectrum
  • Sun, SNRs and galactic radio astronomy
  • Radio galaxies
  • Cluster scale radio emission
  • ...