During the period from January 29th to April 27th, employees of Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Center (VIRAC) for the second time were on a three month training in Manchester, UK, where they participated in training seminars organized by the project partner  Radio Astronomy Institute of the University of Manchester “Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics” (JBCA).

It is worth mentioning that  radio telescopes RT-32 and RT-16 in Irbene are in the service of the Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Center. In addition, in 2019, a new generation Low-Frequency Antenna Array (LOFAR), which will be a part of the international LOFAR antenna array, or the large LOFAR telescope, also plans to launch its operation in Irbene’s radio telescope area.

Since VIRAC has only recently become involved in this kind of projects, and LOFAR is a new generation radio telescope, the knowledge acquired in the training is a qualitative development of the VIRAC competences and contributes to the growth of Latvian science in a relatively new field of radio astronomy – parabolic antenna and LOFAR interferometric data processing.

As a result of the training, VIRAC employees strengthened the existing and acquired new knowledge and skills in radio astronomy:

theoretical basics in radio astronomy;

basic principles of interferometry;

eMERLIN radio-astronomical data calibration;

creation of radio-obejct sky maps and self-calibration;

deconvolution of radio-objects;

effects caused by non-coplanar baselines in synthesized radio telescopes.

The acquired knowledge and competence allow understanding the principles of radio-astronomical data processing and in case of continuing the study process will allow the VIRAC to implement analogous solutions for data processing in the future. The cooperation between the institutes is planned to continue and the results are planned to be collected in scientific publications.

Vērts pieminēt, ka Ventspils Starptautiskā Radioastronomijas centra gādībā atrodas Irbenē esošie radioteleskopi RT-32 un RT-16. Turklāt, 2019. gadā Irbenes radioteleskopu teritorijā savu darbību plāno uzsākt arī jaunās paaudzes zemo frekvenču antenu masīva (Low Frequency Antenna Array) LOFAR,  kurš būs daļa no starptautiskā LOFAR antenu masīva jeb lielā LOFAR teleskopa.