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

Natasha Hurley-Walker*, John Morgan, Randall B. Wayth, Paul J. Hancock, Martin E. Bell, Gianni Bernardi, Ramesh Bhat, Frank Briggs, Avinash A. Deshpande, Aaron Ewall-Wice, Lu Feng, Bryna J. Hazelton, Luke Hindson, Daniel C. Jacobs, David L. Kaplan, Nadia Kudryavtseva, Emil Lenc, Benjamin McKinley, Daniel Mitchell, Bart PindorPietro Procopio, Divya Oberoi, André Offringa, Stephen Ord, Jennifer Riding, Judd D. Bowman, Roger Cappallo, Brian Corey, David Emrich, B. M. Gaensler, Robert Goeke, Lincoln Greenhill, Jacqueline Hewitt, Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, Justin Kasper, Eric Kratzenberg, Colin Lonsdale, Mervyn Lynch, Russell McWhirter, Miguel F. Morales, Edward Morgan, Thiagaraj Prabu, Alan Rogers, Anish Roshi, Udaya Shankar, K. Srivani, Ravi Subrahmanyan, Steven Tingay, Mark Waterson, Rachel Webster, Alan Whitney, Andrew Williams, Chris Williams

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

    66 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We present the results of an approximately 6 100 deg2 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.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article numbere045
    JournalPublications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
    Volume31
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 14 Nov 2014

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'The Murchison Widefield Array Commissioning Survey: A Low-Frequency Catalogue of 14 110 Compact Radio Sources over 6 100 Square Degrees'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this