[evlatests] Slow Pointing Wobbles
Rick Perley
rperley at nrao.edu
Wed Apr 25 18:09:29 EDT 2018
I promise this is the last piece of 'JVLA Spam' for a while ...
Analysis of the gains provided by the extensive observations of
3C273 reveal some other disturbing behavior -- slow wobbles.
In short -- *all* antennas display this phenomenon at one time or
another. At the higher frequencies (K, Ka, Q bands), the gain solutions
commonly undulate with a typically 4 minute period. For most antennas,
the amplitude is small -- perhaps 2% in voltage. At 30 GHz, this will
be seen with a ~15 arcsecond pointing offset from center. (If there is
a pointing error, the observed effect will be seen with a much smaller
offset).
For most antennas, the effect 'comes and goes' -- it is seen on
some scans, and not on others. Although 15 arcseconds may seem small,
it is significant for high-frequency observations of objects with
angular scale similar to the antenna primary beam.
For two antennas, the effect is *much much* larger. I include two
plots, showing them. The amplitudes are very much larger -- indicating
offsets of an arcminute or more.
Is this an encoder issue?
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