High Sensitivity VLBI at 86 GHz : First Fringes with the 100 m Radio Telescope at Effelsberg

• Inclusion of large and sensitive antennas is of essential importance to further improve the imaging capabilities of VLBI at 3.5 mm wavelength. The combination of the 100 m radio telescope at Effelsberg (illuminated diameter ~60 m at lambda = 3.5 mm) with the 30 m radio telescope at Pico Veleta presently allows the detection of compact flux down to a level of 0.2 Jy (for τ=360 seconds integration time). Fringes have been found for 23 radio sources many of them not observed previously with VLBI at 86 GHz. On European baselines to Effelsberg the SNR typically was 10 to 30 (and ranged up to 107 for 3C279), facilitating model fitting for the brightest sources. Even in spite of chaning weather conditions during the observations (coherence times ranged between 10 to 100 seconds) and a still non-optimum pointing model for the 100 m antenna for observations at high frequencies, these results demonstrate that the 100 m radio telescope can be successfully incorporated in global VLBI experiments at 3.5 mm wavelength.

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NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Astronomi, astrofysik och kosmologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology (hsv//eng)

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