Related papers: Calibration Challenges for Future Radio Telescopes
In radio astronomy, accurate calibration is of crucial importance for the new generation of radio interferometers. More specifically, because of the potential presence of outliers which affect the measured data, robustness needs to be…
Our ability to calibrate current kilometer-scale interferometers can potentially confound the inference of astrophysical signals. Current calibration uncertainties are well described by a Gaussian process. I exploit this description to…
This paper summarizes some of the major calibration and image reconstruction techniques used in radio interferometry and describes them in a common mathematical framework. The use of this framework has a number of benefits, ranging from…
Due to the lack of test-beams in ground-based gamma-ray astronomy, detector calibration has been a major challenge in this field. However, with the use of Cherenkov ring-images due to cosmic-ray muons and of strong gamma-ray signals, the…
The development of sensitive large format imaging arrays for the infrared promises to provide revolutionary capabilities for space astronomy. For example, the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) on SIRTF will use four 256 x 256 arrays to provide…
Modern dual-polarization receivers allow a radio telescope to characterize the full polarization state of incoming insterstellar radio waves. Many astronomers incorrectly consider a polarimeter to be the "backend" of the telescope. We go to…
Radio astronomy observations in the coming decade will require new levels of sensitivity while mapping large regions of space with much greater efficiency than is achieved with current telescopes. This requires new instrumentation with the…
Radio Interferometry is an essential method for astronomical observations. Self-calibration techniques have increased the quality of the radio astronomical observations (and hence the science) by orders of magnitude. Recently, there is a…
We review the systematic uncertainties that have plagued attempts to obtain high precision and high accuracy from ground-based photometric measurements using CCDs. We identify two main challenges in breaking through the 1% precision…
We describe the nature of the interference challenges facing radio astronomy in the next decade. These challenges will not be solved by regulation only, negotiation and mitigation will become vital. There is no silver bullet for mitigating…
In order to meet the theoretically achievable imaging performance, calibration of modern radio interferometers is a mandatory challenge, especially at low frequencies. In this perspective, we propose a novel parallel iterative…
Some attempts to predict the very distant future of Radio Astronomy are given. It is not easy to predict a list of the first priority problems which may appear, but the facilities potential is more predictable. It is suggested, that in…
The fidelity of radio astronomical images is generally assessed by practical experience, i.e. using rules of thumb, although some aspects and cases have been treated rigorously. In this paper we present a mathematical framework capable of…
Energy consumption and hardware cost of signal digitization together with the management of the resulting data volume form serious issues for high-rate measurement systems with multiple sensors. Switching to binary sensing front-ends…
The discovery of cosmic radio emission by Karl Jansky in the course of searching for the source of interference to telephone communications and the instrumental advances which followed, have led to a series of new paradigm changing…
We present a technique-led review of the progression of precise radio astrometry, from the first demonstrations, half a century ago, until to date and into the future. We cover the developments that have been fundamental to allow high…
Radio interferometers are phased arrays producing high-resolution images from the covariance matrix of measurements. Calibration of such instruments is necessary and is a critical task. This is how the estimation of instrumental errors is…
In radio astronomy, holography is a commonly used technique to create an image of the electric field distribution in the aperture of a dish antenna. The image is used to detect imperfections in the reflector surface. Similarly, holography…
The wavelength calibration of spectrographs is an essential but challenging task in many disciplines. Calibration is traditionally accomplished by imaging the spectrum of a light source containing features that are known to appear at…
Radio astronomy has entered its golden era, with many revolutionary facilities such as SKA, ngVLA, and LOFAR2.0 coming online in the next decade. These facilities are certain to redefine radio astronomy. However, on smaller scales-such as…