South African MIGHTEE (MeerKAT International GHz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration) Early Science Workshop

January 18, 2019
|In Science and Astronomy
|By Space in Africa
Conference Banner
Early observation of several  MIGHTEE pointings have been completed, and the MIGHTEE-DATA team are working to create preliminary images data sets to support early science projects. Initial images and cubes including multi-frequency synthesis continuum images, Stokes cubes and coarse HI cubes are expected to be available in the next weeks.

In the week following the PHISCC in Perth, the Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) will host a MIGHTEE Early Science workshop from 20 – 22 February 2018.  The workshop is open to international participants, with the primary goal of bringing together the South African faculty, postdoctoral researchers and students who are working on MIGHTEE.

The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the MIGHTEE data,  plan early science programs and collaborations, discuss issues and longer term goals, and generally advance engagement by South African postdoctoral researchers and students in MIGHTEE.

Main topics for the workshop include:
  • Presentations by the MIGHTEE-DATA team and discussion, assessment and critique of data products and plans, and advanced calibration and imaging issues;
  • Early science plans and updates on any early science projects that have something to report;
  • Discussion of techniques and analyses that cut across MIGHTEE science, e.g. source finding, multi-wavelength analysis to classify sources etc.;
  • Discussions of collaborations and future directions;
  • Policy regarding access early science and publication and data access.

REGISTER HERE

Location: University of the Western Cape (UWC), Cape Town, South Africa

Date: 20 – 22 February, 2019

ABOUT MIGHTEE – MeerKAT International GHz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration

MIGHTEE is a radio continuum survey which is being conducted with the South African SKA pathfinder telescope MeerKAT. It aims to probe to much fainter flux densities (0.1–1 μJy beam−1 rms) than the EMU/WODAN surveys, over smaller areas (20deg2) at higher angular resolution, at an observing frequency of 950 MHz – 1.7 GHz.

The MIGHTEE survey strategy will follows a tiered approach both in survey area and in sensitivity, using the longer baselines to be able to probe below the confusion limit of the shorter baseline surveys such as EMU and WODAN.

The higher sensitivity and resolution will enable exploration of AGN, SF galaxies, and galaxy clusters from the EoR through to the present day.

MIGHTEE