Radio Interferometry SS 2021 (astro8404)

Dr. Lydia Moser, Dr. Stefanie Mühle, Dr. Alvaro Sánchez-Monge, Prof. Dr. Frank Bertoldi
 
 

Course Material


Important note: The following lecture material is only intended for the personal use of the registered participants and may therefore be encrypted with a password. By accessing the material, whether encrypted or not, you agree that you won't share the material or the password with anyone not registered for this course and that you won't make the files or the password available online.

Material for the lecture part

Introductory Videos on ALMA, Radio Interferometry and more (Cycle 8 2021 Proposal Preparation Support)

ALMA Cycle 8 2021 Proposer's Guide



Logistics

Introduction to Radio Interferometry, part 0

Introduction to Radio Interferometry, part 1

Introduction to Radio Interferometry, part 2

Introduction to Radio Interferometry, part 3

Introduction to Radio Interferometry, part 4

Introduction to Radio Interferometry, part 5

Introduction to Radio Interferometry, part 6

Introduction to Radio Interferometry (videos)

Introduction to CASA

First steps in CASA



Calibration Basics, part 1: Visibility Corruption

Calibration Basics, part 2: Cross Calibration

Calibration Basics, part 3: Calibration Flow

Calibration Basics (videos)

Hands-on part 1: import, listobs (slides)

Hands-on part 1 (video)

Hands-on part 2: T_sys, WVR (slides)

Hands-on part 2: T_sys, WVR - Checks (slides)

Hands-on part 2 (videos)

Hands-on part 3: Bandpass (slides)

Hands-on part 3: Flux (slides)

Hands-on part 3 (videos)

Hands-on part 4: Phase, amplitude (slides)

Hands-on part 4: Flux transfer (slides)

Hands-on part 4: Checks (slides)

Hands-on part 4 (videos)

Hands-on part 5: Inspection (slides)

Hands-on part 5: Inspection - How to (slides)

Hands-on part 5 (videos)

Imaging 1: Visibilities

Imaging 2: Imaging

Imaging 3: Deconvolution

Imaging (videos 1-3)

Imaging 4: Contsub

Imaging 5: Line

Imaging 6: CLEAN algorithms

Imaging (videos 4-6)

Imaging 7: error recognition

Imaging 8: PBcor, products

Imaging (videos 7-8)



Special Applications: Self-Calibration

Special Applications: Data combination

Special Applications: Polarization

Special Applications: VLBI

Special Applications: Self-Calibration, data combination (videos)

Special Applications: Polarization, VLBI (videos)



Material for the hands-on part

Preparatory tutorial (optional): For those new to Linux and command-line computing, there are a number of free introductory tutorials available online. A rather concise one that covers the most important basics in the first 5 chapters (~40 minutes to read) can be found here.

Tips and tricks for the hands-on sessions

First steps in CASA: first_script.py

script for calibration, week 1

script for calibration, week 2 --- solution

script for calibration, week 3 --- solution

script for calibration, week 4 --- solution

script for calibration, week 5 (with solutions)

script for imaging, continuum --- solution

script for imaging, line --- solution

script for imaging, PBcorr and products --- solution



Data sets

The lecture data set (~5.6 GB unpacked) is the data set that will be used during the hands-on work in class. Solutions in form of a template script will be posted after each lecture.

The homework data set (~5.8 GB unpacked) is a data set that all participants can use for practicing their data reduction skills and for detailed discussions with the tutors. Solutions in form of a template script are available on request.

The exam data set (~15 GB unpacked) is the data set for the milestones and the presentation/paper. Each participant taking this course for credit needs to work on this data set on their own and to submit their material for the milestones. Participants not taking the course for credit are also welcome to work on this data set and submit material in order to get feedback on their progress.

The local participants will find a copy of the data sets in their project accounts. The remote participants are cordially invited to download the data to their own machines from this link.


Milestones

During the course, there will be three milestones that will help you to get your course work done in good time. If you take this course for credit, you are expected to hand in certain products of your data reduction by the due date of each milestone. If you do not take this course for credit, but would like us to check your progress, you are welcome to hand in material as well.

Instructions for Milestone 1 were published on 10 May 2021. The material was to be uploaded to the file drop area by 25 May 2021. Instructions for Milestone 2 are available since 09 June 2021, with a deadline on Monday, 28 June 2021. Instructions for Milestone 3 are online since 29 June 2021. The deadline for the upload of material was 10:00 CEST on Monday, 12 July 2021.

Milestone 1 --- Feedback on Milestone 1

Milestone 2 --- Feedback on Milestone 2

Milestone 3 --- Feedback on Milestone 3 and guidelines for the exam

exam guidelines




Literature

Synthesis Imaging in Radio Astronomy II, ASP Conference Series, V. 180, 1998, Editors: Taylor, Carilli, Perley

Interferometry and Synthesis in Radio Astronomy (Wiley 2001), by Thompson, Moran, Swenson

CASA Guides

astro841: Radio Astronomy, graduate-level course at Bonn university

Essential Radio Astronomy

ALMA Cycle 8 Proposer's Guide

ALMA Cycle 8 Technical Handbook


Software

Throughout this course, we will use the Common Astronomy Software Applications package (CASA) for the reduction and analysis of our interferometric data. The main source of information related to CASA is the CASA homepage. The scripts that will be used throughout this course have been written for CASA release 5.6.1 and up.

In class, we will use the CASA release 5.7. Local participants will have the option to use a server with this CASA version already installed. Remote participants who want to participate in the hands-on exercises are kindly requested to download and install CASA on one of their local machines.

The official documentation for the CASA release 5.7 can be found here. Further documentation is available in the form of CASA Guides.