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Results from SIMPLETON

Based on the nature of the celestial sources that can be seen with a SIMPLE array (as listed below), the SIMPLETON results are categorised into the three areas:

Celestial objects that can be observed with a SIMPLE array

The following sources can be detected with a SIMPLE 20 MHz array (depending on the geographical latitude of the observatory and the sensitivity of the receivers; list incomplete):

Neither the Sun nor Jupiter are picked up in their quiet state; they are seen only during storms and other types of transient radio emission. Similarly, radio-bright nearby supernovae or Gamma-ray bursts might, depending on their brightness, also be visible from time to time.

Examples

For those interested in seeing results, I have plotted "3 days in the life of a simpleton". There is a separate page on transient events. After editing out visibilities from such transient events (both celestial and radio frequency interference, RFI), a SIMPLE array can be used to image the background 20 MHz radio sky, beyond the Solar system.

The combined ("cross-correlated") signals from both antennas are not only stored on hard disk, but also made audible via the computer's soundcard. This way one can listen to the events on the sky registered by the interferometer, such as e.g. Solar flares, storms on Jupiter, radio emission from the Galactic centre and other sources. And, what's even better, they can be recorded and reformatted into SIMPLE audio tracks!

Here an animation of how the Milky Way culminates at different times of the day over the course of a year (external link) produced by David Brodrick and students supervised by him. Each panel shows the 20 MHz intensity received by a SIMPLE antenna over one day, with about a week's time from one plot to the next. Since time is plotted from midnight to midnight (Australian Eastern Standard Time), the most prominent noise features remain in the middle of each plot, because they are terrestrial and/or Solar interference, which are strongest during daytime and into the evening.