Update on the POLFAR project

As we reported last year after the Polish announcement, three new antenna stations for International LOFAR Telescope are to be constructed in Poland. At the end of 2013, POLFAR received a grant from the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education for the construction and equipment of three international LOFAR stations as part of their national research infrastructure investment. Today we have the press release from ASTRON regarding the announcement.

Today the contract was signed for the POLFAR construction work. Specifically, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) and the Polish LOFAR consortium (POLFAR) signed a contract for the construction of three new antenna stations for the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT) in the north, west and south of Poland. The signing of the contract took place at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn in Poland in the presence of representatives of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education and local governments, and representatives of the Polish astronomical and space sciences communities.

The new LOFAR stations will be located in Łazy (in southern Poland, operated by the Jagiellonian University in Krakow), Bałdy (in northern Poland, operated by the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn), and Borówiec (in western Poland, operated by the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences). The formal agreement between the POLFAR consortium and ASTRON now marks the start of the preparations for the roll-out of these new stations.

The new map of the ILT showing the POLFAR stations (source: ASTRON)

The International LOFAR Telescope has 38 stations in the Netherlands, six in Germany, and one each in France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Connecting the three new ‘POLFAR’ stations will add valuable extra sensitivity to the array. And in particular, the Polish stations give ‘baselines’ of up to 1550 km in the array, making the ILT a much more capable instrument for high resolution imaging of detailed structues. The positions of the new stations also literally provide new angles on ionospheric tomography.

All components for the LOFAR stations, such as the manufacturing of thousands of antenna elements and electronics, are to be contracted out to industry. The construction of the three new stations will start immediately and is estimated to be completed before the end of 2015. 

KAIRA film

At the LOFAR Science Workshop 2014 in Amsterdam, we premièred the KAIRA film. This was produced by SiteEye in conjunction with Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, U. Oulu, ASTRON, EISCAT, and many others. (Versions with subtitles in many languages will be posted later.)




Enjoy!

UPDATE!
The film is also available with Finnish subtitles (LINK). 

LOFAR station Norderstedt

Guten Tag! This is Germany calling!

At the Hannover Messe (the world's largest industrial fair), ASTRON, the University of Hamburg and Bielefeld University will sign tomorrow a contract for construction of a new German LOFAR station for the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT).

The new station will be located at Norderstedt, close to the city of Hamburg.

Click map to enlarge (image based on an original by ASTRON)

The additional of another station to the ILT network is important not just for the resources it provides to local education, research and industry, but because of its important contribution to the ILT itself. Each LOFAR station adds valuable collecting area, thus allowing astronomers to detect ever-fainter signals. However, the placement of the new station is such that it provides critical intermediate baselines, thus improving the imaging capabilities of the ILT.

But there is also the knowledge factor as well. Each new station gives an opportunity for new researchers and new expertise to join the strong ILT community. This is vital for the local knowledge base and the advancement of science for participating regions and countries.

In the case of the new German station, researchers at the University of Hamburg, led by Prof. M. Brüggen, specialise in studying the formation and evolution of clusters of galaxies from the early Universe to the present era. The group at Bielefeld University, led by Prof. D. Schwarz, studies the distribution of galaxies on the largest observable distances in the Universe, which carry imprints from the era of cosmological inflation.

Signing of the contract will take place tomorrow at the Holland High Tech Pavilion at the Hannover Messe, in Hall 2 booth D10 from 12:00 - 12:30 hours (CEST).



Link:
https://www.astron.nl/about-astron/press-public/news/contract-new-lofar-antenna-station/astron-university-hamburg-and-biel

ASTRON/JIVE 2014 Summer Student Programme

ASTRON and JIVE announce the availability of a limited number of grants for their 2014 Summer Student Programme. The Programme enables astronomy students (graduate or advanced under-graduate) to spend the summer (10-12 weeks) at the Dwingeloo Observatory, conducting astronomical research under the supervision of ASTRON and JIVE staff members. Possible topics of study include radio galaxies and quasars, aspects of observational cosmology, continuum and line emission/absorption from normal and starbust galaxies, faint radio sources, pulsars, molecular clouds, cosmic magnetism, as well as working with LOFAR data. The actual project the successful candidate will work on will be defined after arrangement with the local supervisor.

For details and to apply for the summer programme, please visit http://www.astron.nl/astronomy-group/astronjive-summer-student-programme.

The "A" sources

Some of the stars that we see with our own eyes have names, but many are catalogued in some systematic way. One of the first major attempts to do this listed each star according to its brightness within a given constellation. The brightest would be assigned the Greek letter alpha, then the next brightest would be beta, then gamma, and so on. Then, just to mix things up, this would be followed by the constellation's Latin name (in the genitive case, of course!). Thus we have stars such as alpha Orionis or beta Ursae Minoris. Since then, there have been many optical star catalogues made, with combinations of letters, numbers, etc., referring to them by position, brightness or some other criteria.

In the early days of radio astronomy, it was noted that, like its optical counterpart, there were distinct objects in the radio sky. These discreet sources were also labelled along similar lines. The brightest "radio star" in a given constellation would be named by the constellation and the Latin letter, starting with "A" for the brightest, then "B", and so forth.

Because radio astronomy advanced so quickly, this system was only used briefly, before naming radio objects with catalogue numbers or positions, such as 3C273 or PSR B1919+21. However, those first few remain highly significant and are, of course, the brightest. So radio astronomers continue to refer to them by their historic names. Because it is usually only the brightest ones that get this treatment, they are usually just the "A" sources from each constellation. Collectively, they are referred to as the "A-sources" or the "A-team".

We use the positions of the A-sources a lot, so we may as well make the list available to everyone else too. The following parametersare the Right Ascensions and Declinations in decimal degrees and radians for each of these historic radio sources.


Name    RA(deg)     Dec(deg)    RA(rad)     Dec(rad)
Cas A    350.8500     58.8150    6.1234877     1.0265154
Cen A    201.3651    -43.0191    3.5144833    -0.7508252
Cyg A    299.8682     40.7339    5.2336866     0.7109409
For A     50.6730    -37.2093    0.8844107    -0.6494249
Her A    252.7839      4.9926    4.4119122     0.0871371
Hyd A    139.5235    -12.0956    2.4351453    -0.2111072
Ori A     83.8221     -5.3911    1.4629713    -0.0940926
Per A     49.9507     41.5117    0.8718036     0.7245158
Per B     69.2682     29.6705    1.2089587     0.5178480
Pic A     79.9572    -45.7788    1.3955169    -0.7989909
Pup A    126.0292    -42.9967    2.1996239    -0.7504334
Sex A    152.7521     -4.6914    2.6660268    -0.0818802
Sgr A    266.4168    -29.0078    4.6498510    -0.5062818
Tau A     83.6331     22.0145    1.4596727     0.3842255
Vir A    187.7059     12.3911    3.2760865     0.2162659

Coordinates are J2000 equinox; J2000.0 epoch.               

Sources:

• Baars et al., The absolute spectrum of CAS A - an accurate flux density scale and a set of secondary calibrators, A&A, 61, 99, 1977
• Bolton, J.G., Stanley, G.J, and Slee, O.B., Galactic Radiation at Radio Frequencies - VIII, Aust.J.Phys, 7, 1, 109-129, 1953.
• Roger, R.S., et al., The radio emission from the Galaxy at 22 MHz, A&A.sup, 137, 7-19, 1999.
• Scaife, A.M.M, & Heald, G.H., A broadband flux-scale for low-frequency raio telescopes, MNRAS, 423, 1, pp. L30-L34, 2010. 
• Stanley, G.J., and Slee, O.B., Galactic Radiation at Radio Frequencies - II, Aust.J.Phys, 1949.
• van der Tol, S., Bayesian Estimation for Ionospheric Calibration in Radio Astronomy, PhD Thesis, 2009
• SIMBAD online catalogue, http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/
• LOFAR system catalogue, ASTRON, 2011.