[daip] IMAGR multiple fields: what's the issue with beam scaling? Also: CALIB with multiply concatenated VLBA datasets.

Eric Greisen egreisen at nrao.edu
Sun Nov 25 18:07:43 EST 2007


SUSAN BILL WIDER writes:
 > Eric, Amy.
 > 
 >    I'm running IMAGR with a couple of fields.  The first field
looks about right with a maximum of 1.0 Jy for the beam but the second
field beam has a maximum of 4.0 Jy.  How can this be?  Aren't the
beams meant to have unity maximum?  Or is there some additional
weighting that has to happen?  The sum of the gridding weights in both
cases is the same so what's going on here?  (PRTMSG capture appended.)

When there are large numbers of data samples, it is possible for the
accumulated round-off errors to cause bad beam values, esp in the
corneres of the image where the correction for the FFT of the
convolving function is vary large.  If you look at these beams you
will see large positive and negative (1st field has -1.5 Jy as min)
values in the corners.  IMAGR should be able to survive this.

 > 
 >    Another issue:  I have concatenated multiple VLBA datasets
together to improve my sensitivity.  The configuration of the arrays
in most of the datasets is the same but not always.  Consequently, the
antenna numbering scheme for each sub-array changes --- say, if one
antenna was unanvailable.  If I run CALIB on this multi-epoch
database, CALIB reports that some antennas get flagged because they
can't be tied across sub-arrays.  This shouldn't happen, I think,
because all we need is that the sub-set of antennas in each effective
sub-array at each epoch should be linked.  I don't remember this sort
of behavior with VLA multi-epoch data so is there something different
happening when a non-VLA array is involved?

It depends on how you have concatenated these data.  If DBCON has
called them separate sub-arrays, then there should be no connection
between the subarrays in any case.  The flagging to which you refer is
due to antennas being disconnected within a subarray - i.e. with no
way to relate the phase of the antenna to the phase of the reference
antenna.

Eric Greisen

 > 
 >                               Bill
 >       blackhol   AIPS (31DEC07)     131               23-NOV-2007   05:55:12               Page    1
 > Pops  Prior    Date        Time       Task          Messages for user  131
 >  
 >    1    5   22-NOV-2007  21:54:18     IMAGR     Task IMAGR  (release of 31DEC07) begins
 >    1    3   22-NOV-2007  21:55:04     IMAGR     UVGET: Using flag table version  17 to edit data
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  21:59:28     IMAGR     Create 3C274 MC    .IMAGR .   1 (UV)  on disk  2  cno    1
 >    1    4   22-NOV-2007  21:59:28     IMAGR     Beginning channel    1 through   64 with  2 IFs
 >    1    3   22-NOV-2007  22:12:58     IMAGR     IMACPY: Copied  5327801 visibilities to be imaged
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  22:13:01     IMAGR     Create 3C274 MC U  .IBM001.   2 (MA)  on disk  1  cno  126
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  22:13:01     IMAGR     Create 3C274 MC U  .IBM002.   2 (MA)  on disk  1  cno  127
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  22:13:01     IMAGR     Create 3C274 MC U  .ICL001.   2 (MA)  on disk  1  cno  128
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  22:13:01     IMAGR     Create 3C274 MC U  .ICL002.   2 (MA)  on disk  1  cno  129
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  22:13:03     IMAGR     QINIT: did a GET  of    5120 Kwords, OFF       -344181861
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  22:13:03     IMAGR     GRDFLT: X and Y convolution type = SPHEROIDAL
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  22:13:03     IMAGR     GRDFLT: X and Y parms =  3.0000  1.0000
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  22:13:03     IMAGR     GRDFLT: convolution function sampled every 1/100 of a cell
 >    1    2   22-NOV-2007  22:13:03     IMAGR     GRDMEM: Ave  128 Channels; 3.245212E+08 to 3.403962E+08 Hz
 >    1    4   22-NOV-2007  22:43:30     IMAGR     Field    1 Sum of gridding weights =  1.34944E+02
 >    1    4   22-NOV-2007  22:43:31     IMAGR     Field    1 Beam min =   -1.5      Jy, max =    1.0      Jy
 >    1    4   22-NOV-2007  22:43:31     IMAGR     Field    1 fit FWHM=   70.414 x   41.497 Milliarcsec, PA=  -25.9
 >    1    4   22-NOV-2007  23:03:02     IMAGR     Field    2 Sum of gridding weights =  1.35039E+02
 >    1    4   22-NOV-2007  23:03:04     IMAGR     Field    2 Beam min =   -1.4      Jy, max =    4.0      Jy
 >    1    4   22-NOV-2007  23:03:04     IMAGR     Field    2 fit FWHM=   70.435 x   41.507 Milliarcsec, PA=  -25.9
 >    1    4   22-NOV-2007  23:03:05     IMAGR     CLBHIS: minimum component 0.500 of current peak
 >    1    4   23-NOV-2007  00:17:16     IMAGR     Field    1 min = -236.7 MilliJy,max =    1.2      Jy
 >    1    4   23-NOV-2007  01:33:28     IMAGR     Field    2 min = -127.4 MilliJy,max =   37.6 MilliJy
 >    1    2   23-NOV-2007  01:33:29     IMAGR     BGC Clean: using 1019 cell beam + residuals >   343.39 MilliJy
 >    1    2   23-NOV-2007  01:33:31     IMAGR          226 Residual map points loaded
 >    1    4   23-NOV-2007  01:33:31     IMAGR     Field    1 min algorithm flux=  884.381 MilliJy iter=        4
 >    1    3   23-NOV-2007  01:33:31     IMAGR     Field    1 Clean flux density=  414.179 MilliJy        4 comps
 >    1    3   23-NOV-2007  01:33:31     IMAGR     Total Cleaned flux density     =  414.179 MilliJy        4 comps
 >    1    4   23-NOV-2007  01:33:31     IMAGR     SETDO3: imaging done with multiple tangent planes
 >    1    2   23-NOV-2007  01:33:31     IMAGR     VISDFT: Begin DFT component subtraction
 >    1    2   23-NOV-2007  01:33:31     IMAGR     VISDFT: Model components of type Point
 >    1    3   23-NOV-2007  01:33:31     IMAGR     I Polarization model processed
 >    1    2   23-NOV-2007  02:18:36     IMAGR     BGC Clean: using 1019 cell beam + residuals >   343.39 MilliJy
 >    1    2   23-NOV-2007  02:18:37     IMAGR            0 Residual map points loaded
 >    1    4   23-NOV-2007  03:33:07     IMAGR     Field    1 min = -192.5 MilliJy,max =  797.2 MilliJy
 >    1    4   23-NOV-2007  04:49:13     IMAGR     Field    2 min =  -79.8 MilliJy,max =   28.9 MilliJy
 >    1    2   23-NOV-2007  04:49:16     IMAGR     BGC Clean: using 1019 cell beam + residuals >   228.67 MilliJy
 >    1    2   23-NOV-2007  04:49:17     IMAGR          392 Residual map points loaded
 >    1    4   23-NOV-2007  04:49:17     IMAGR     Field    1 min algorithm flux=  459.853 MilliJy iter=       12
 >    1    3   23-NOV-2007  04:49:17     IMAGR     Field    1 Clean flux density=  894.323 MilliJy       12 comps
 >    1    3   23-NOV-2007  04:49:17     IMAGR     Total Cleaned flux density     =  894.323 MilliJy       12 comps
 >    1    2   23-NOV-2007  04:49:17     IMAGR     VISDFT: Begin DFT component subtraction
 >    1    3   23-NOV-2007  04:49:17     IMAGR     I Polarization model processed
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