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I am looking for a raw radio-astronomic antenna array dataset of relatively modest size (on the order a few MB, or even less), to evaluate a data processing algorithm. The dataset ideally should be simultaneously sampled received signals from several antennae with known positions, containing a number of sources differing in direction of arrival and/or frequency.

Perhaps, some python library with standard algorithms for building a 2D "synthetic aperture image" of radio sources might have bundled example data, which would satisfy me. I have come across the LOFAR database, which seems huge and requires complicated processing pipeline, so my question may be along the lines of "how to get a small drink from a firehose".

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  • $\begingroup$ Don't think that possible with the LOFAR database. In the early days, their data processing took weeks to produce a single correlated picture, because you have to take in all the data at once. I would recommend to look for single dish databases. $\endgroup$
    – AtmosphericPrisonEscape
    Oct 3, 2019 at 14:55
  • $\begingroup$ May a single dish produce 2D dataset, allowing to reconstruct a 2D picture? $\endgroup$
    – Mikhail Kagalenko
    Oct 3, 2019 at 14:59
  • $\begingroup$ Of course. A picture (oversimplified) is just a set of different orientations of your central beam, and then mapping the intensities you measure according to where the antenna/dish/CCD was oriented. $\endgroup$
    – AtmosphericPrisonEscape
    Oct 3, 2019 at 15:02
  • $\begingroup$ But that would be an intensities dataset, not coherent data, wouldn't it? I want to try interferometric processing. $\endgroup$
    – Mikhail Kagalenko
    Oct 3, 2019 at 15:03
  • $\begingroup$ Well, intensity interferometry is also attempted at being done (in the visible, with the Cherenkov Telescope Array), although I'm unclear on the details of this. If you want to do phase interferometry, then I unfortunately don't know how where to get that data from. But I would always recommend to start small, lest you get overwhelmed by too many baselines. Are there observatories that have only one baseline? The russian Spektr-R comes to my mind, but I don't know if their data is public. $\endgroup$
    – AtmosphericPrisonEscape
    Oct 3, 2019 at 15:09

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