e-MERLIN / VLBI National Radio Astronomy Facility
Recent news and science highlights from e-MERLIN, MERLIN and VLBI
e-MERLIN Cycle-0 online simulator tool
12 Jan 2012
12th January 2012: e-MERLIN call for proposals Cycle-0 (semester
2012A)
A new web-based simulator designed to assist in proposal
preparation for e-MERLIN, cycle-0 and beyond is now available at http://www.e-merlin.ac.uk/observe/eMERLINost.html
This easy to use simulator tool allows sensitivities, uv-coverages and
simulated images to be produced to aid with all forms of e-MERLIN
proposals.
e-MERLIN Cycle-0 (semester 12A) proposal submission tool is open
10 Jan 2012
10th January 2012: e-MERLIN call for proposals Cycle-0 (semester
2012A)
e-MERLIN is now open to proposals from the international
astronomical community on the basis of scientific
merit alone. Proposals are competitively peer-reviewed
under standard STFC rules by the PATT e-MERLIN Time
allocation Committee
The e-MERLIN proposal submission tool Northstar
is now open for proposal submissions for Cycle-0
Proposal deadline = Midnight (23:59GMT) 26th January 2012
5 Jan 2012
5th January 2012: A boost for European Radio
Astronomy
A boost for European Radio Astronomy
The European astronomy collaboration RadioNet has been granted 9.5 million Euros
by the European Commission to fund its latest program, RadioNet3, for the years
2012 to 2015. This not only continues the two preceding European projects, but
also takes a leap forward to include ALMA, as well as a number of pathfinder pro
grams for the SKA. Read the full press release at the
MPIfR
site.
10 Jan 2012
10th January 2012: e-MERLIN call for proposals Cycle-0 (semester
2012A)
e-MERLIN announces first open call for proposals
12 Dec 2011
12th December 2011: e-MERLIN call for proposals Cycle-0 (semester
2012A)
e-MERLIN is now open to proposals from the international
astronomical community on the basis of scientific
merit alone. Proposals are competitively peer-reviewed
under standard STFC rules by the PATT e-MERLIN Time
allocation Committee. During the first 5 semesters of
e-MERLIN operations ~50% of observing time has been
allocated to 12 large legacy projects and most of the
remaining time will be allocated via PATT to standard
proposals solicited prior to each observing semester.
e-MERLIN provides high resolution (40-150mas) and high
sensitivity (~6-12 uJy in this cycle 0) imaging at cm
wavelengths as well as polarimetry, spectroscopy and
astrometry. Shared-risk 'Cycle-0' observations will start
in February 2012, with some limitations in observing
capabilities.
( ..read more..)
Black holes and warped space: New UK telescope shows off first images
9 Dec 2010
9th December 2010: Black holes and warped space: New UK
telescope shows off first images
This dramatic image is the first to be produced by e-MERLIN, a powerful new array of radio telescopes linked across the UK.
Spearheaded by the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory and funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the
e-MERLIN telescope will allow astronomers to address key questions relating to the origin and evolution of galaxies, stars and planets.
To demonstrate its capabilities, University of Manchester astronomers turned the new telescope array toward the "Double Quasar". This
enigmatic object, first discovered by Jodrell Bank, is a famous example of Einstein's theory of gravity in action.
The new image shows how the light from a quasar billions of light years away is bent around a foreground galaxy by the curvature of
space.
This light has been travelling for 9 billion years before it reached the Earth. The quasar is a galaxy powered by a super-massive black
hole, leading to the ejection of jets of matter moving at almost the speed of light - one of which can be seen arcing to the left in this
new e-MERLIN image.
( ..read more..)
( ..more images available here..)
This is a composite of the new e-MERLIN radio image of the Double Quasar and an earlier Hubble Space Telescope (HST) optical image.
One of
the le nsed quasar core images is visible at lower right. The radio emission generated by the black hole as seen with e-MERLIN is visible
as the compact bright region superimposed on the (yellow-green) optical emission seen by HST. The radio jet, moving at speeds approaching
that of light, is see n in the e-MERLIN image arcing away from the black hole towards the upper left. The jet shows several regions of
enhanced brightness before it en ds in a hotspot where it is ploughing through the tenuous matter filling the space around the quasar.
The e-MERLIN image is shown in false-colour with a colour table ranging from blue through red to white, where the colours represent the
bri ghtness of the radio emission. The HST image is made from WFPC2 images through two filters: the F555W filter (V-band) is coloured green
and the F 814W filter (I-band) is coloured red.
Credit: Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester
17th February 2010: MERLIN science press release
A team of astronomers, led by Dr. Wouter Vlemmings at Bonn University, has used the MERLIN radio telescope network centred on the Jodrell Bank Observatory
to
show that magnetic fields play an important role during the birth of massive stars. Magnetic fields are already known to strongly influence the formation of
lower-mass stars like our Sun. This new study reveals that the way in which high-mass and low-mass stars form may be more similar than previously suspected.
The scientists report their work in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. ( ..read more..)
1 January 2010:
e-MERLIN commissioning has continued over the holiday
season. We observed the gravitational lens system B1608+656 in order
to test the data flow from the 3 antennas currently providing digital
datastreams (Pickmere, Mk2, and Darnhall), via the correlator, into a
format suitable for the AIPS data reduction package. The compact
quasars J2136+006 & J0555+398, with flux densities assigned by near
simultaneous observations of the resolved flux density calibration
source 3C286 were used to set the amplitude scale and correct the
phases across the bandpass. The image below was produced by
self-calibration of the target data. B1608+656 is a well-known
gravitaionally-lensed source consisting of 4 components, used to
verify that we obtain geometrically correct multiple-component images
with the expected flux density ratios.
The gravitational lens
system B1608+656 imaged using 3 antennas and a single 128-MHz sub-band
of e-MERLIN (approximately 5 hr of data, taken 15th December
2009).
The components are point sources at this resolution;
it is not possible to image extended emission correctly with only 3
antennas.
The crosses show that the new data are consistent with
the positions of the lensed components taken from MERLIN archive data
observed in 1995.
The peak flux density at 4.9 GHz was 39 mJy
in 1995 and 25 mJy in 2001, so the present recorded peak of 13 mJy at
6.7 GHz is consistent with a continued decline in flux density.
The e-MERLIN data used to image B1608+656
The calibrated visibility amplitudes and phases
are shown in blue. The Fourier transform of the image Clean Components is shown in violet, demonstrating a good fit between data and model.
Data collected at 6.7 GHz on B1608+656 within a week of the
e-MERLIN run with the original MERLIN datastream configuration (15 MHz
bandwidth per polarization) through the old MERLIN
correlator.
The calibrated visibility amplitudes and phases
for the hour-angle range observed with e-MERLIN are again shown in
blue & the Fourier transform of the image Clean Components shown in
violet for the Darnhall-Mk2 baseline (with old MERLIN the baseline is
defined in the opposite sense so the phase data are reversed with
respect to e-MERLIN). Note that the e-MERLIN data on this baseline have
3 times better signal to noise with just a single sub-band as compared
with the old merlin data.
16th December 2009: Jodrell Bank Centre for
Astrophysics
and The University of Manchester will
be hosting the 10th EVN Symposium and Users meeting between 20-24th September 2010.
(... to read more)
15th December 2009:Over the last few months we have been working
on commissioning and debugging the correlator configuration software.
Alongside this work we have been retro-fitting updates and developments to
the telescope timing and digitisation hardware, and implementing the new
e-MERLIN local oscillator systems. We have been testing these updates and
developments using 3 e-MERLIN antennas (Mk2, Pickmere, and Darnhall).
Last weekend we observed a bright point source calibrator in a
single IF containing 1024 frequency channels over a total bandwidth of
128MHz at 6.1984GHz. The data have been exported to the AIPS software
analysis suite via FITS IDI and calibrated with standard routines
(amplitude, phase and bandpass corrections have been applied). Sample
plots of corrected amplitudes and phases on the three baselines between
Mk2, Pickmere, and Darnhall are shown below. At present, test observations
over 4 adjacent sub-bands are being made with a total bandwidth of 512MHz
(over 30 times the bandwidth available for original MERLIN, and a quarter
of e-MERLIN's final bandwidth).
Digital signals from a 4th antenna (Knockin) are expected to
be correlated before the end of the month. Additional correlator hardware
will be added early in 2010 which will permit the addition of the
remaining e-MERLIN antennas and the extension of the maximum correlation
bandwidth to 2GHz in each hand of polarization as set down in the e-MERLIN
specification.
Amplitudes and Phases for a single sub-band of
e-MERLIN data (data taken 11th December 2009)
Target source: J2136+006
Pink and turquoise - raw uncalibrated amplitudes and phases respectively
Bright red/green: amplitude and phase with the delay, rate, bandpass,
phase and amplitude calibrations
applied. Note the scatter on the calibrated data is smaller than the
symbol size.
Calibrated Amplitudes and Phases as shown above but rescaled (data
taken 11th December 2009).
Target source: J2136+006
Bright red/green: amplitude and phase with the delay, rate, bandpass,
phase and amplitude calibrations
applied.
First fringes achieved
24th April 2009: Today e-MERLIN saw first fringes on the 10-km baseline between the Mk2 and Pickmere telescopes (... read more)
UK 'superscope' gets first signals from space
20th April 2009: e-MERLIN, a super-powerful new radio telescope network - which will allow
astronomers to carry out three years worth of observations in a single day - has received its first
signals from space at the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank.
(... read more)
Jodrell Bank to help star gazers travel 'Around the World in 80
Telescopes'
2nd April 2009: Scientists at Jodrell Bank are to be at the
heart of a global astronomy marathon. 'Around the World in 80
Telescopes' is a 24-hour live video web-cast that will enable
star-gazers to see what is happening at observatories around the
world. ( ... read more)
European VLBI Network to participate in "100 Hours of Astronomy" with live webcast and
e-VLBI observations
23rd March 2009: The European VLBI Network (EVN) will showcase the e-VLBI astronomical technique in the "100 Hours of Astronomy" with a live
webcast on Friday 3 April and e-VLBI observations on Friday 3 April and Sunday 5 April. "The 100 Hours of Astronomy" is a cornerstone project of the
International Year of Astronomy. (... read more )
Radio-astronomers
conduct marathon observation with world-sized telescope
13 January 2009: 17 radio telescopes around the world will conduct a nearly continuous 33-hour observation as part of a
demonstration at the opening ceremony for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 in Paris 15-16 January. ( ... read more and here)
)
Marathon e-VLBI images, educational e-VLBI Web site and Virtual
Radio Interferometer now available online. A "movie" of the sequential, automatically-generated images and three hand-crafted images (image 1, image 2, image 3) of the target source J0204+1514, observed during the "marathon" e-VLBI observation 15-16 January, are now available. This observation was demonstrated live during the International Year of Astronomy Opening Ceremony along with an educational web site about e-VLBI and Virtual Radio Interferometer, both of which are also available online.
