The Murchison Widefield Array Commissioning Survey: A Low-Frequency Catalogue of 14 110 Compact Radio Sources over 6 100 Square Degrees. (2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hurley-Walker, Natasha; Morgan, John; Wayth, Randall B.; Hancock, Paul J.; Bell, Martin E.; Bernardi, Gianni; Bhat, Ramesh; Briggs, Frank; Deshpande, Avinash A.; Ewall-Wice, Aaron; Feng, Lu; Hazelton, Bryna J.; Hindson, Luke; Jacobs, Daniel C.; Kaplan, David L.; Kudryavtseva, Nadia; Lenc, Emil; McKinley, Benjamin; Mitchell, Daniel; Pindor, Bart; Procopio, Pietro; Oberoi, Divya; Offringa, André; Ord, Stephen; Riding, Jennifer; Bowman, Judd D.; Cappallo, Roger; Corey, Brian; Emrich, David; Gaensler, B. M.; Goeke, Robert; Greenhill, Lincoln; Hewitt, Jacqueline; Johnston-Hollitt, Melanie; Kasper, Justin; Kratzenberg, Eric; Lonsdale, Colin; Lynch, Mervyn; McWhirter, Russell; Morales, Miguel F.; Morgan, Edward; Prabu, Thiagaraj; Rogers, Alan; Roshi, Anish; Shankar, Udaya; Srivani, K.; Subrahmanyan, Ravi; Tingay, Steven; Waterson, Mark; Webster, Rachel; Whitney, Alan; Williams, Andrew; Williams, Chris;
• Is Part Of: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia. Volume 31(2014)
• Publication Date: 2014
• Subjects: radio continuum: general – surveys – techniques: interferometric; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Southern sky (Astronomy) -- Periodicals; Astrophysics -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1017/pasa.2014.40
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1323-3580

Abstract

Abstract: We present the results of an approximately 6 100 deg 2 104–196 MHz radio sky survey performed with the Murchison Widefield Array during instrument commissioning between 2012 September and 2012 December: the MWACS. The data were taken as meridian drift scans with two different 32-antenna sub-arrays that were available during the commissioning period. The survey covers approximately 20.5 h < RA < 8.5 h, − 58° < Dec < −14°over three frequency bands centred on 119, 150 and 180 MHz, with image resolutions of 6–3 arcmin. The catalogue has 3 arcmin angular resolution and a typical noise level of 40 mJy beam − 1, with reduced sensitivity near the field boundaries and bright sources. We describe the data reduction strategy, based upon mosaicked snapshots, flux density calibration, and source-finding method. We present a catalogue of flux density and spectral index measurements for 14 110 sources, extracted from the mosaic, 1 247 of which are sub-components of complexes of sources.