Daily Image
28-05-2014
MSSS-HBA observations are complete!
| Submitter: | George Heald |
| Description: | The Multifrequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS) is LOFAR's first large-scale imaging survey, and has played a large role in focusing LOFAR development efforts. Since early 2013, the emphasis has been on the HBA portion of MSSS (spanning the 120-160 MHz range). This has led to many nice images, and is also being used for a broad range of early science projects (such as those presented in the MSSS portion of the LOFAR Science Workshops). As expected, the HBA portion of MSSS has allowed rapid output from the observations! We are happy to announce that the final MSSS-HBA observations have recently been completed!! The 3616th field was observed during the weekend of 9-10 May 2014, meaning that images have now been made of the entire Northern sky using LOFAR. This massive achievement puts the cap on a huge effort undertaken by the LOFAR Science Support group, and in particular Michiel Brentjens and Emanuela Orrù, who have both spent a great deal of time in setting up the observations and the corresponding pipeline processing. Particularly in the early days of the survey timeline, these were by no means trivial tasks, and their work has paved the way for making normal LOFAR imaging observations possible. It is also important to acknowledge the essential contributions of the rest of the Science Support team (Carmen, Richard, Wilfred, and their fearless leader Roberto!) and Antonis. Finally, none of this would have been possible without the hard work of the Software Group, whose contribution often goes quietly unremarked but is absolutely essential for us lucky astronomers to have a good time studying LOFAR images. To celebrate this milestone achievement, we'll celebrate today at ASTRON with some tasty cake during our coffee break. I wonder who will have to light the 3616 candles... |
| Copyright: | MSSS / ASTRON |
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