[evlatests] Problems with referenced pointing?
Rick Perley
rperley at nrao.edu
Thu Aug 13 12:10:08 EDT 2015
I had a long X-band observation in the evening of August 11. As
the target source is large (2 arcminutes), I ran referenced pointing
hourly, at X-band, using a very nearby calibrator (J2007+4029) -- very
strong (2.5 Jy), very clean.
The results are bizarre. Attached is a voltage gain plot for ea13
-- most other antennas show similar results. The two plots are for RCP
and LCP.
Large steps in gain are seen, all of them coincident with the
referenced pointing times. I observed the calibrator before and after
the referenced pointing -- and the steps coincide in every case. The
largest step is a 6% change in amplitude -- 12% in power. That's ~ 1
arcminute change in position at 10 GHz.
Did the antennas really do this? The referenced pointing data say
no. For the large step at 05:30 IAT, the change in antenna position, as
given in the referenced pointing data, was a mere 6 arcseconds.
The weather was relatively benign -- 5 m/s typical wind. The
elevation was quite high -- nearly 80 degrees. However, the other steps
seen earlier are all at moderate elevation. It should be noted that the
jumps are upwards at 3:30 and 4:30 IAT -- this means the application of
the solutions *worsened* the antenna positioning.
Something is not right here.
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