Timeline

 

12/2012
  • Feasibility study for software correlator commences.
02/2013
  • First 10 Gbps packets received from PFBs (polyphase filterbanks).
04/2013
  • First pulsar detection.
  • First prototype filter board constructed.
06/2013
  • Installation of Swinburne’s 22 GPU supercomputer and switches at Molonglo.
  • Optical fibre lengths along arms re-measured.
07/2013
  • First production RX box passes spec in the lab.
09/2013
  • First prototype RX box deployed to field.
10/2013
  • First production filter boards deployed.
  • Fibre patch board in the Burst Room completed.
11/2013
  • 11-bay deployment along East arm with production RX boxes and filters.
  • Vela pulsar observations in incoherent mode.
  • New station atomic clock installed.
12/2013
  • Cooling fans deployed into all bay enclosures and new fans for FPGA cooling.
  • Antennae alignment to meridian in RX equipped bays.
  • First RX production board deployed.                               
  • 16-module simultaneous pulsar observations.
  • 22-bay deployment of RX boxes completed.
01/2014
  • 52-module simultaneous pulsar observations.                             
  • TIME project commences on the Vela pulsar (~20 microsecond residuals).
02/2014
  • First fringes between bays achieved on 3C273.
  • Feb 28th – Fringes on every baseline! 
03/2014
  • Meridian drive alignment starts in earnest — first few aligned modules show much improved S/N on Vela.
 04/2014
  • First big rollout week: Matthew, Shivani, Chris, Fabian, Frank and Manisha at Molonglo for 2 weeks. 
  • 14 pulsars seen in individual bays – a new record. 
  • Vela seen on 76 modules — a new record. 
05/2014
07/2014
  • Sentinel mode operates successfully for the first time
  • Hired cherry picker increases the MD servicing rate by a factor of ~3
08/2014
  • Swinburne team visit for 1 week (Chris, Matthew, Shivani, Vivek and Manisha)
  • Major testing of telescope pointing and the correlator
  • We run a mode where all 352 modules take data and fold Vela simultaneously
09/2014
  • Swinburne team back for 1 week (Chris, Matthew, Tim, Vivek)
  • Plans developed for installation of new telescope pointing control system
  • First measure of Meridian Gain curve with Vela
  • First tied array beam on a pulsar!

10/2014

11/2014
01/2015
  • Glitch in Vela confirmed – monitoring continues
  • Monitoring of radio transients seen at MWA
  • Successful shadowing of DECam in Chile at the Blanco telescope, using Parkes to trigger data dumps
  • Single burst archives of Vela live in tied array beam mode
  • Individual pulses from Vela seen live
02/2015
03/2015
04/2015
05/2015
06/2015
08/2015
10/2015
11/2015
01/2016
02/2016
03/2017
08/2017
03/2018
05/2019
05/2019