Daily Image

19-10-2006
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Millimetre Valley, Mauna Kea

Submitter: Rob Millenaar
Description: Successful interferometry observations from the eSMA.

In the night of 10 October first fringes were observed by the combined telescopes of the Submillimeter Array SMA (at the right in the photograph), the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory CSO (left foreground), and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope JCMT (in the middle). Actually, these were 'new' first fringes, after the proof of concept observations that were done last year. We are now slowly moving towards a more standard mode of operations with the eSMA, with 2 nights per month scheduled interferometry expected in 2007.
The JCMT came back in operation after a half year shutdown period, during which the telescope underwent electrical and mechanical changes for the arrival of the huge SCUBA 2 instrument, early 2007. With the multibeam HARP heterodyne reciever and the new ACSIS correlator working (ASTRON's DAS correlator was retired earlier this year), the JCMT will have a great suite of instrumentation, which includes interfeometry at (sub)millimetre wavelengths. The eSMA will play an important role in pre-ALMA millimetre observations.

NWO, JIVE, University of Leiden and ASTRON contribute in the eSMA project by performing tests, commissioning and receiver retrofitting activities in Hilo, in addition to science projects.
Copyright: ASTRON
 
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