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Session 54 - Ground and Instrumentation Techniques and Catalogs.
Display session, Wednesday, June 12
Tripp Commons,

[54.14] Repeating Jansky's Experiment

F. Ghigo, D. Balser, N. Bates, W. Grammer, S. Heatherly, G. Langston (NRAO-Green Bank), D. Emerson (NRAO-Tucson)

A replica of Karl Jansky's "merry-go-round" antenna at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia is being refurbished to make it a usable radio telescope. Although receiver and data acquisition systems have been added which are more modern than Jansky's, the antenna itself including the feed and drive system are very similar to those used by Jansky. The antenna is capable of mapping the whole accessible sky every day with a 25 degree beam at 20 MHz. Since very little wide field mapping has been done at this frequency since Jansky's day, it is potentially interesting to look for possible changes that may have happened in the past 60+ years to the flux densities of the brightest sources and the galactic emission. These observations take advantage of the current solar minimum, during which 20 MHz observing is often possible. When the refurbishment project is complete, the antenna may be used on a continuing basis for student projects in NRAO-hosted education programs. The progress to date on this project will be summarized, and preliminary observations will be presented.

Program listing for Wednesday