HerA Gold Observation

As part of the MWAX new correlator development and testing, an observation was taken using both the MWAX correlator and the existing MWA correlator.

Observation: 1247842824

Obs ID: 1247842824

View MWA Correlator observation info

View Receiver PPDs

MWA and MWAX correlator mode:

  • Frequency averaging: 10 kHz
  • Integration time: 1 second

Even though the array was in long baseline mode, we decided to take the observation in a mode which both correlators support. MWA normally runs at 0.5 sec integration time, however MWAX supports 0.4 or 0.6 seconds. So it was decided in the interest of comparing like with like to run both at the next best setting they have in common: 1 second integration times.

MWAX Corrections Applied: None

  • Specifically:
    • No cable length corrections (this feature will be implemented soon and will be controlled by a flag in the metafits)
    • No geometric corrections (this feature will be implemented soon and will be controlled by a flag in the metafits)
    • No digital gain correction (this feature will be implemented soon and will be controlled by a flag in the metafits)
    • No bandpass corrections

Observation duration:

  • MWA: 120 seconds
  • MWAX: first 40 seconds

Channel selection comparison:

Receiver Channel #MWA Coarse Channel #MWAX Coarse Channel #
11291
113102
114113
115124
116135
117146

Data Access:

Download MWA observation via MWA ASVO: click here (24 coarse channels, metafits)

Download MWAX data: click here (6 coarse channel fits files and a 'doctored metafits to be consistent with 6 coarse channels and only 40 second duration)

Receiver / Tile health:

All tiles produced data in this observation

Point of interest:

There is some RFI in ch114 at around 145.84 MHz. This can be seen in both the legacy correlator data as well as the MWAX data.

NOTE:

The new MWAX correlator was only configured to capture the first 40 seconds of this observation (the MWA correlator would have 120 seconds) and only 6 coarse channels (the equivalent of MWA gpubox09,10,11,12,13,14).


See the following articles for information on ordering of data and fits format:

MWAX Visibility File Format

MWAX Antenna Ordering