Description
The MeerKAT telescope is a precursor for the SKAO, the next generation radio observatory. We have been successful in being awarded observing time on MeerKAT for a pathfinder SKAO-project to conduct a wide-field (approx. half of the whole southern sky) survey, called MeerKLASS. Several hundred hours of data at 580-1015 MHz have already been collected and we exploit a technique called On-The-Fly Mapping (OTF) which allows us to image the sky extremely quickly (300 square degrees per hour), at full angular resolution (approximately 15 arcseconds) and with high sensitivity (~30 muJy). This survey will have huge legacy value and also allow cosmological studies such as measuring the dipole induced by the Milky Way’s motion through its effect on the radio source count.
In this talk we will present the OTF data reduction pipeline and show results from our initial data release. We will demonstrate the image fidelity and accuracy of our continuum sky maps and discuss the potential for studies of polarised, variable and extended low-surface brightness sources.
