27–30 Jul 2026
Engineering Research Center, Brown University
US/Eastern timezone

Enabling routine daytime observation via temperature compensation

Not scheduled
20m
Main sessions: Room 190, Break-out sessions: Room 125 (Engineering Research Center, Brown University)

Main sessions: Room 190, Break-out sessions: Room 125

Engineering Research Center, Brown University

Providence, Rhode Island
Presentation Solar, Heliospheric and Ionospheric Science

Speaker

John Morgan

Description

While MWA calibration solutions can usually be applied successfully to nighttime observations over several hours, the same is not true for daytime observations. This is particularly problematic for observations of the Sun, since the Sun's emission can change rapidly with frequency and time, meaning that there is no sky model to calibrate against.

Through the use of a large archive of daytime IPS observations that have been successfully calibrated, we show that the behaviour with frequency rules out an ionospheric effect, and that the change in phase with time is instead consistent with thermal expansion of the cables from beamformer to receiver.

We use this information to compensate for thermal expansion, meaning that solar observations can now be calibrated using standard calibration solutions. We explain this new calibration scheme, and provide some suggestions for future work.

Timeslot preferences I will be remote from Perth, so preferably early on in the day local time

Author

Co-author

Angie Waszewski (University of Newcastle)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.