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Session 30 - Radio Astronomy, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - I.
Oral session, Tuesday, June 11
Union Theater,
\par The VLA, fifteen years after its dedication, remains a powerful and desirable instrument. This summer it will finish the observations for an all-sky survey at 20cm wavelength, with 45" angular resolution and a source completeness level of about 2 mJy. This survey will result in a catalog of about two million radio sources. A survey with about 4.5" angular resolution and slightly greater sensitivity also is being pursued at high galactic latitudes, and currently covers about a tenth of the visible sky.
\par About two years ago, 7mm receivers were installed on some of the VLA antennas. The number of antennas has recently been increased to 13 (of the 27 VLA antennas). This and a gradual improvement in receivers, antenna efficiencies, and observing techniques has resulted in a significant increase in the instrument's capabilities in this band.
\par The VLBA is emerging from its commissioning period. A significant advance that the VLBA has made over previous VLBI observing is that it has become relatively easy to operate it as a fully coherent instrument by using a nearby calibrator, at least at wavelengths of 6 and 3.6cm. Long integrations can therefore detect objects as faint as one or two mJy, or, for slightly stronger objects, determine the relative positions of object and calibrator at the 100 microarcsecond level.
