Welcome to the “Realising SKA-Low: new technologies & techniques for imaging and calibration of low frequency arrays” Conference
Please note: registration is now closed.
Wednesday March 29 - Friday March 31 2017
This conference is to share expertise gained from imaging and calibrating today’s low-frequency radio interferometers to inform SKA1-Low design and science considerations. The program will be a mix of invited and contributed papers.
This Conference takes place in the same week and location as an AADC Consortium and SKA Board meetings: The sessions of day 1 will be programmed to encourage most overlap between the engineers and science communities and seek to identify how the collective expertise can be harnessed to best benefit SKA-Low.
The conference will be held at the ARRC Building (Australian Resources Research Centre), adjacent to Curtin University in Perth, WA Australia, 29-31 March 2017. There will be a joint AADC Consortium and conference dinner on Wednesday 29 March 2017 to which all are invited (separate payment will be required).
The meeting is generously sponsored by ICRAR, SKAO and CSIRO.
VENUE: ARRC Building in Perth, WA
26 Dick Perry Ave, Kensington (see map below)
SOC Co-Chairs: Prof. Carole Jackson, Dr Cathryn Trott
Motivation
With SKA1-Low in the final stages of array design and initial hardware testing, it is timely to assess the lessons learned from SKA pathfinders and precursors, and other low-frequency radio interferometers (MWA, LOFAR, PAPER, etc), coupled with the characteristics of low-frequency observing at the Murchison Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRO). Across all these instruments, the interplay between technology and processing techniques has come to the fore: this meeting aims to capture this knowledge to benefit the ongoing development of SKA-Low.
Over the last ~6 years, a wealth of substantial, but distributed knowledge has been amassed in the reinvigorated field of low frequency radio astronomy, most notably across the nature of the sky and techniques for interferometry at these wavelengths. This conference will bring together low-frequency observational astronomy experts to discuss, share and refine this knowledge, leading towards SKA1-Low. The program will focus on the evolutionary path to creation and adaptation of new algorithms to suit the key science undertaken by the precursors.
- MRO ionospheric conditions and ionospheric calibration requirements
- Interferometric calibration with aperture array stations
- Polarised emission and polarisation calibration and specification
- Current best sky models: point source, diffuse, extended
- Observing conditions at the MRO
- Definition of station beam shapes
- RFI mitigation trends & realtime analysis
KEY DATES
| First announcement | 13 October 2016 |
| Pre-registration (Registration of interest) | 13 October 2016 |
| Second announcement (draft program, local logistical information) | 10 January 2017 |
| Third and final announcement (confirmed program) | 28 February 2017 |
| Registration closes | 3 March 2017 |
SOC
Cath Trott (ICRAR-Curtin)
Carole Jackson (ICRAR-Curtin)
Ravi Subrahmanyan (RRI)
Jason Hessels (ASTRON)
Huub Rottgering (Leiden)
David Kaplan (UWisc)
Jeff Wagg (SKA Office)
George Heald (CSIRO – CASS)
Jan Geralt Bij de Vaate (ASTRON)
Joeri van Leeuwen (ASTRON)
confirmed Invited speakers
Randall Wayth (ICRAR-Curtin)
Ron Ekers (CSIRO)
Maaijke Mevius (ASTRON)
Roberto Pizzo (ASTRON)
Michiel Brentjens (ASTRON)
Jeff Wagg (SKA Office)
Wendy Williams
Anna Bilous
Ben McKinley
Andrew Williams
Emil Lenc
Daniel Mitchell
Jonnie Pober
Stefan Wijnholds
