LBA Calibrator Survey (LCS)

Objectives of the campaign

The goal of the project is to observe at 8.4 GHz a list of candidate flat spectrum radio sources with declination < -50° with using the Australian LBA instgrument and to 1) determine their postiion with milliarcsec accurady; 2) measure their correlated flux density; 3) detrmine their suitability as calibrators for phase referencing observations and as target for astrometry and geodesy observations.

People

Team members (in alphabetic order):

Previous Observations

On 2007.06.24_12:00 a 12 hour K-band experiment v230 with ATCA-104, CEDUNA, MOPRA, PARKES, HARTRAO HOBART26, SESHAN25 was observed. The primary goal of the experiment was to derive coordinates of stations ATCA-104, CEDUNA, MOPRA with centimeter accuracy. The secondary goal of the project was to check feasibility of running global astrometry experiments with the LBADR backend.

Five sources, never previously observed with the VLBA, were added to the schedule, two scans per source. All of them have been detected. Their positions were determined with 2–5 mas accuracies. More details can be found here. This experiment has proved the concept.
More details about the v230 experiment can be found here.

Proposed Observations

We request two 24 hour observing sessions at ATCA, Ceduna, Mopra, Hobart, Parkes, Hartrao (and Tidbinbilla if available) for running X-band observations to determine coordinates at a milliarcsec accuracy level for ~400 flat-spectrum sources in the declination zone [-50°, -90°]. We will also produce estimates of correlated flux density and source structure. The output catalogue of source positions will be of use for phase-referencing observations at the LBA, as a calibrator pool for the ATCA, ALMA, and SKA, for space navigation, and as a source list for geodetic observations. Considering success rate of 75 %, the pool of known southern calibrators is expected to increase by a factor of 4.

Full text of the proposal.

List of candidates

The list of 203 candidates was generated on a basis of the preliminary results at20g catalogue. They were selected on the basis of their spectra: the sources with projected correlated flux density > 200 mJy and with the spectral index flatter than -0.6 were selected.

Current status

Mailing list

Mailing list is for discussing issues related to the LCS experiments. Only subscribers can post messages to the list. The messages posted to the list are available for viewing to all from the mail archive.

Back to VLBA Calibrator Survey web page.
This page was prepared by Leonid Petrov ()
Last update: 2008.08.13_18:36:37