[mmaimcal] Some thoughts on ALMA calibrator sources

[Ed Fomalont]

Hello bored Harvey,

    Leonid Petrov and a few of us are looking for VLBI calibrators in 
the southern hemisphere.  Most VLBI calibrators have flattish spectrum 
so they may be good at ALMA frequencies.

    His latest list, which includes some of the southern hemisphere VLBI 
observations are in

http://astrogeo.org/vlbi/solutions/2010a_astro/2010a_astro_cat.txt

There may be a lot more sources in the south.

It is pretty similar to the VLBA calibrator list which doesn't go too 
far south.  How many in these lists would be new potential ALMA calibrators?

Also

http://astrogeo.org/lcs/v271d/

has results for the latest southern hemisphere observations.



In the end ALMA will have to find its own calibrators.  What is best way 
to do this?  The trick is getting a list of a few thousand candidate 
sources that ALMA can check out fairly quickly.  But, where does this 
candidate list come from?  We have a start on a few hundred now. 
Perhaps the best method is to search in a few square degree area around 
target sources that are to be scheduled.  I am not sure what the best 
search strategy is?  ATCA, Japanese array?, one 25-m telescope?

Cheers,  Ed