Daily Image
24-11-2009
LOFAR Low frequency all-sky snapshot image
| Submitter: | Sef Welles |
| Description: | The picture shows an ultra-short shapshot of the low-frequency radio sky, made with the 43 inner LBA antennas of a single LOFAR station. A data-dump of the Transit Buffer Boards (TBB) was used, rather than the standard imaging pipeline. This made it possible to make an image with an integration time of only 5 milliseconds(!). The frequency range was 30 MHz to 85 MHz. The most prominent contribution comes from the Milky way, which lies slightly West of the local meridian. The positions of a number of bright sources, which should be visible with these settings, are also indicated. LOFAR is the first radio telescope with built-in TBB's. Combined with other unique LOFAR capabilities like very wide bandwidth and very large field-of-view, this promises exciting times ahead, with the discovery of all kinds of rapidly varying phaenomena that are invisible to other telescopes. |
| Copyright: | Sef Welles |
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