Itinerary taking shape fast

So things are taking shape fast! Plane tickets and accomodation booked.

The is itinerary coming together. So there will be a little bit of driving. About 17 hours round trip. So what is it all about? Its all about going to the SKA, here;


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And talking to the scientists and engineers! I have a few questions now, mostly about the data, lets start with these;

How much of a difference it makes to put the array in a relatively isolated area like Murchinson?

Whats the comparitive S/N numbers?

How many Antennas, LNA and receivers?

How are they comapring the data from those receivers?

Whats the effective gain of a single array, vesus the whole array versus a single Antennas, LNA and receiver?

Is this pahsed to drive direction?

How to shuffle that volume data around?

How is the data going to be processed?

How is the data going to be used?

How is the data going to be stored for reuse?

There are so many pieces of the puzzle that I haven't seen yet. You can see this is only scratching the surface!

I suppose the big question for TheSkyNet crunching public is how can we help? =D

MRO and SKA in the news: All eyes on new telescope in WA

Article from ABC Radio National yesterday.

"The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) has officially been launched" more at; All eyes on new telescope in WA