First light for the ANZ e-VLBI

Australasia’s first virtual “e-Telescope” came to life in February, when Australian and New Zealand radio telescopes linked together in real time.

A week of real-time eVLBI experiments between Australia and NZ began with the first ever Trans-Tasman eVLBI session on 1 February.  The week culminated with the creation of Australasia’s first ever virtual e-telescope on 8 February, when Australian and New Zealand radio telescopes were operated remotely via KAREN and AARNet, from AUT’s Warkworth radio astronomical observatory.  A range of celestial object was observed from one of the strongest compact radio sources in the southern sky (quasar PKS 1921-293) to a relatively weak (~0.3 Jy) radio source.