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Characterisation of candidate calibrators

A list of potential high frequency calibrators in the southern sky (southward of the equator) has been produced. This list was formed by merging the VLA, ATCA, SEST, IRAM and BIMA calibrator manuals, some PMN sources (stronger than 0.5 Jy and probably unresolved in the PMN survey), Johnston et al's list of VLBI sources for the Radio Reference Frame (1995AJ....110..880J), sources in some VLA high frequency calibrator searches (VLA test memos 192, 193), Beasley's candidates (1997A&AS..124..469B), a 22 GHz VLBI survey by Moellenbrock et al (1996AJ....111.2174M), a catalogue by Kuhr et al. (1981A&AS...45..367K), an unpublished survey by Lowell, a survey by Neri, and the sources of Tornikoski (1996A&AS..116..157T), Terasranta (1998A&AS..132..305T), and Adraou (2001A&A...376.1123A1B) and the WMAP catalogue (2003ApJS..148....1B).

A small number of other sources have been added for a variety of reasons. Merging these catalogues resulted in over 3000 sources and 6 planets. About 1000 of these sources are north of the equator.

Of the southern sources, 53% of the candidates are only in the PMN survey (90% of the candidates were in PMN and passed the PMN selection criteria). 27% of the candidates came from the VLA calibrator manual, 14% and from the ATCA manual.

There are links to:

  • A list of all the candidates. This table has five columns: the source RA, DEC, a name and a source "reference". The "reference" indicates catalogues etc that the source is present in.
  • The reduced data at 3mm, 12mm, 3cm, 6cm, 13cm and 20cm. The table has seven columns: name, source flux estimate (scalar average), source flux estimate (vector average or triple product), an estimate of the percentage of flux outside the main component (for three-baseline measurements only), the theoretical noise level in each visibility, the scatter between each correlation (ideally this should equal the theoretical noise level), the observing date and a comment. Flux values are in mJy. "Detections" in the 12mm and 3mm measurements that are below 400 mJy should be treated with caution.
You can view information on the candidate sources:
Source Name:   

Alternatively, you can search for candidates near a position. Give the J2000 position in the form hh:mm:ss,dd:mm:ss

Source Position:   Search radius (deg):

Also see ...

Original: Bob Sault
Modified: Phil Edwards (07-nov-2012)