In this paper, we describe the system design and capabilities of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope at the conclusion of its construction project and commencement of science operations. ASKAP is one of the first radio telescopes to deploy phased array feed (PAF) technology on a large scale, giving it an instantaneous field of view that covers $31\,\textrm{deg}^{2}$ at $800\,\textrm{MHz}$. As a two-dimensional array of 36$\times$12 m antennas, with baselines ranging from 22 m to 6 km, ASKAP also has excellent snapshot imaging capability and 10 arcsec resolution. This, combined with 288 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth and a unique third axis of rotation on each antenna, gives ASKAP the capability to create high dynamic range images of large sky areas very quickly. It is an excellent telescope for surveys between 700 and $1800\,\textrm{MHz}$ and is expected to facilitate great advances in our understanding of galaxy formation, cosmology, and radio transients while opening new parameter space for discovery of the unknown.

The recently completed HI mosaic survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud (Kim et al. 1997) reveals complex structure in the interstellar medium, including filaments, arcs, holes and shells. We have catalogued giant and supergiant HI shells and searched for correlations with Hα emission, using a new image taken with a camera lens mounted on the 16-inch telescope at Siding Spring Observatory.

The prompt radio emission associated with SN 1987A appeared and disappeared within the space of a few days. The next radio emission is expected as the high velocity ejecta expand into the circumstellar material. The evidence from the timing of the initial UV-flash is that this stage may occur shortly. We have therefore begun to monitor the field around SNR 1987A at high sensitivity with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. At λ6cm, an upper limit to the radio emission of 180μJy has been obtained. Continued observations are planned.

We report the development of a radio-linked interferometer which uses the 64-m telescope at Parkes, NSW, and one of the NASA antennas (64-m or 34-m) at Tidbinbilla, ACT. With a baseline of approximately 275 km, this is the world’s longest real-time interferometer; it will be usable at frequencies of 1.6, 2.3, 8.4, and 22 GHz to give angular resolutions of 0.13, 0.09, 0.03, and 0.01 arcsec respectively. The interferometer has already operated successfully in a limited mode and is expected to become fully operational in its initial configuration by September 1985. Operation at a range of frequencies and with progressive enhancements is planned up to the commissioning of the Australia Telescope in 1988.

The synthesis telescopes at Fleurs and Molonglo have been used to map 50 supernova remnants. Additional specialized software to process the maps has been developed, and Parkes observations have been used to supply short spacing information missing from the maps.

The strong unidentified radio source 1733-565 (≡ PKS 1733-56) was chosen as a test source during the commissioning of the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST) in 1981 July. Previous radio maps have been obtained at 1410 MHz with the Parkes interferometer (Schwarz et al. 1974), at 408 MHz with the Molonglo Cross (Schilizzi & McAdam 1975) and at 1415 MHz with the Fleurs Synthesis Telescope (Christiansen et al. 1977).

Although only three antennas of the Australia Telescope Compact Array are currently operational, we have made use of the technique of bandwidth synthesis to make an image of the radio galaxy 2152 – 69. The three baselines were used to observe the source at three different frequencies, effectively resulting in nine baselines, which have been used to produce an image with a surprisingly high dynamic range, and with a slightly higher resolution than any existing image.

The production of such a worthwhile result, despite being made with a small subset of the capabilities of the Australia Telescope, bodes well for the future operation of the instrument.

8.4 GHz linear polarization maps, obtained with the Parkes radio telescope, are presented for six southern supernova remnants. These results are compared with published and unpublished polarization maps at 5 GHz to derive the magnetic field direction and Faraday rotation measure distribution.

These results are part of a program to map the magnetic fields in galactic supernova remnants and complement our program to obtain high-resolution maps of galactic SNRs using the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope; five new Molonglo maps are presented here.

This paper describes the first results from a 20 deg2 mosaic of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) in the λ21-cm line of neutral hydrogen. The mosaic consists of 320 separate pointings with the 375-m array of the Australia Telescope Compact Array. The angular resolution is 1′· 5 (26 pc, for a distance of 60 kpc) and the velocity resolution is l·6kms−1. The images reveal a structure of remarkable complexity, with much of the spatial power contained in high-brightness temperature compact knots and filaments. Numerous wind-blown ‘bubbles’ and ‘supershells’ are evident in the data, both inside and outside the stellar confines of the SMC. Some high-density H I regions are seen to correlate with Hα regions, indicating sites of current star formation. However, many high-column-density H I regions are devoid of optical emission and may represent regions of future star formation. These regions may be under-abundant in diffuse molecular gas due to the high radiation field and low metallicity of the SMC.

The Molonglo Observatory synthesis telescope (MOST) of the University of Sydney (Mills 1981) produces maps of the 843 MHz continuum emission from fields of width 23′, 46′ or 70′ arc. The telescope comprises two co-linear east-west cylindrical paraboloids each 2186λ in length and separated by a gap of 43λ. For each paraboloid a phasing network (Durdin et al. 1984) generates a comb of 64 contiguous fan beams. Mapping is accomplished in real time during a 12-h observation by overlaying, in the map plane, the instantaneous cross-correlations of corresponding beams. The synthesized point-source response (beam) produced by this method has a width of 43″ (E-W) by 43″ cosec δ (N-S).

The radio source G357.7-0.1 has commonly been regarded as a galactic supernova remnant; alternative interpretations have concentrated on the pronounced brightness gradient along its major axis. Analysis of our new map shows that this brightness gradient masks an even more crucial characteristic – symmetry about the centre – the key to a totally different interpretation.

This paper describes the system architecture of a newly constructed radio telescope – the Boolardy engineering test array, which is a prototype of the Australian square kilometre array pathfinder telescope. Phased array feed technology is used to form multiple simultaneous beams per antenna, providing astronomers with unprecedented survey speed. The test array described here is a six-antenna interferometer, fitted with prototype signal processing hardware capable of forming at least nine dual-polarisation beams simultaneously, allowing several square degrees to be imaged in a single pointed observation. The main purpose of the test array is to develop beamforming and wide-field calibration methods for use with the full telescope, but it will also be capable of limited early science demonstrations.

Digital signal processing is one of many valuable tools for suppressing unwanted signals or inter-ference. Building hardware processing engines seems to be the way to best implement some classes of interference suppression but is, unfortunately, expensive and time-consuming, especially if several miti-gation techniques need to be compared. Simulations can be useful, but are not a substitute for real data. CSIRO’s Australia Telescope National Facility has recently commenced a ‘software radio telescope’ project designed to fill the gap between dedicated hardware processors and pure simulation. In this approach, real telescope data are recorded coherently, then processed offline. This paper summarises the current contents of a freely available database of base band recorded data that can be used to experiment with signal processing solutions. It includes data from the following systems: single dish, multi-feed receiver; single dish with reference antenna; and an array of six 22 m antennas with and without a reference antenna. Astronomical sources such as OH masers, pulsars and continuum sources subject to interfering signals were recorded. The interfering signals include signals from the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and its Russian equivalent (GLONASS), television, microwave links, a low-Earth-orbit satellite, various other transmitters, and signals leaking from local telescope systems with fast clocks. The data are available on compact disk, allowing use in general purpose computers or as input to laboratory hardware prototypes.

The development of the radio remnant of SN 1987A has been followed using the Australia Telescope Compact Array since its first detection in 1990 August. The remnant has been observed at four frequencies, 1.4, 2.4, 4.8, and 8.6 GHz, at intervals of 4–6 weeks since the first detection. These data are combined with the 843 MHz data set of Ball et al. (2001) obtained at Molonglo Observatory to study the spectral and temporal variations of the emission. These observations show that the remnant continues to increase in brightness, with a larger rate of increase at recent times. They also show that the radio spectrum is becoming flatter, with the spectral index changing from −0.97 to −0.88 over the 11 years. In addition, at roughly yearly intervals since 1992, the remnant has been imaged at 9 GHz using super-resolution techniques to obtain an effective synthesised beamwidth of about 0″.5. The imaging observations confirm the shell morphology of the radio remnant and show that it continues to expand at ˜3000 km s−1. The bright regions of radio emission seen on the limb of the shell do not appear to be related to the optical hot spots which have subsequently appeared in surrounding circumstellar material.

The parameters of a new Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) mosaic of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in the 21-cm line of neutral hydrogen are described. A preliminary peak-brightness-temperature image of the whole of the LMC, and a detailed image of the region around the supergiant shells LMC 4 and 5 is shown.

A ‘pulsar timing array’ (PTA), in which observations of a large sample of pulsars spread across the celestial sphere are combined, allows investigation of ‘global’ phenomena such as a background of gravitational waves or instabilities in atomic timescales that produce correlated timing residuals in the pulsars of the array. The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) is an implementation of the PTA concept based on observations with the Parkes 64-m radio telescope. A sample of 20 ms pulsars is being observed at three radio-frequency bands, 50 cm (~700 MHz), 20 cm (~1400 MHz), and 10 cm (~3100 MHz), with observations at intervals of two to three weeks. Regular observations commenced in early 2005. This paper describes the systems used for the PPTA observations and data processing, including calibration and timing analysis. The strategy behind the choice of pulsars, observing parameters, and analysis methods is discussed. Results are presented for PPTA data in the three bands taken between 2005 March and 2011 March. For 10 of the 20 pulsars, rms timing residuals are less than 1 μs for the best band after fitting for pulse frequency and its first time derivative. Significant ‘red’ timing noise is detected in about half of the sample. We discuss the implications of these results on future projects including the International Pulsar Timing Array and a PTA based on the Square Kilometre Array. We also present an ‘extended PPTA’ data set that combines PPTA data with earlier Parkes timing data for these pulsars.

We present the results of an HI aperture synthesis mosaic of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), made by combining data from 1344 separate pointing centers using the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The resolution of the mosaiced image is 1′ (15 pc, using a distance to the LMC of 50 kpc).

The radio remnant of SN 1987A is now of sufficient flux density that super-resolution is possible at 9 GHz. We present a sequence of images from 1992 to 1996 with a resolution of ≈ 0″.5xb, showing the continuing interaction between the expanding shock front and the surrounding axisymmetric circumstellar material.

We present the result of an HI aperture synthesis mosaic of the Large Magellanic cloud (LMC), made recently with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The resolution of the mosaiced images is l′.0 (15 pc, using a distance to the LMC of 50 kpc). In contrast to its appearance at other wavelengths, the LMC is remarkably symmetrical in HI on the largest scales, with the bulk of the HI residing in a disk of diameter 8.°4 (7.3 kpc). Outer spiral structure is clearly seen, though the features appear to be due to differential rotation, therefore transient in nature. On small to medium scales, the combined action of numerous shells and supershells dominate the structures and motions of the HI gas in the LMC. A good correlation is seen between supershells previously identified in Hα (e.g. Meaburn 1980) and HI structures. We compare the results with a new wide-field Hα image.

Jupiter’s microwave emission was observed throughout the SL9 impact period by many different telescopes, among which the NRAO 140-foot telescope in Green Bank (21 cm), Westerbork (92 cm), Effelsberg (6, 11 cm), Parkes (21 cm), NASA DSN (13 cm), and the Very Large Array (22, 90 cm). We determined the “average” total nonthermal flux density from the planet after having subtracted the thermal contribution, following the formulation by de Pater and Klein, (1989) and Klein et al., (1989). The flux density increased typically by 40-50% at 6 cm wavelength, 27% at 11-13 cm, 22%at 21 cm and 10-15% at 90 cm. Thus the radio spectrum hardened considerably during the week of cometary impacts. Following the week of cometary impacts, the flux density began to subside at all wavelength.

VLA images show the brightness distribution of the planet; a comparison of images taken before and during the week of impacts show marked changes in the brightness distribution. At a central meridian longitude λIII≈ 110°, the left side of the belts increased considerably and moved inwards by ~ 0.2 RJ. This suggests that the increase in flux density is caused by energization of the resident particle population.