Some Synthesis Telescope imaging algorithms to remove nonisoplanatic and other nasty artifacts

National Research Council of Canada, Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, P.O. Box 248, Penticton, BC, Canada V2A 6K3

Send offprint request to: A.G. Willis

Received: 11 August 1998
Accepted: 18 February 1999

Abstract

The small diameter antennas of the DRAO Synthesis Telescope give this instrument a very wide field of view (107 arcmin FWHM at 21 cm wavelength and 330 arcmin at 74 cm wavelength). Consequently the telescope has recently begun a systematic survey of a large region of the galactic plane. However, due to the wide field of view, the varying quality of the components used to build the telescope, and the long time required to synthesize a given field, artifacts may appear in ST images which are not easily removable by standard self-calibration techniques. This paper describes the specialized algorithms which have been developed at DRAO to remove such image defects.