A High Resolution Survey of the Galactic Plane at 408 MHz

TL;DR

This paper presents a detailed 408 MHz radio survey of the Galactic plane with high angular resolution, providing valuable data for interstellar medium research and demonstrating calibration and data access methods.

Contribution

It offers a high-resolution, calibrated radio continuum survey of the Galactic plane at 408 MHz, integrating large-scale structures and detailing data access for ISM studies.

Findings

High angular resolution (2.8') survey data produced.

Calibration accuracy of 6% for flux densities.

Data integration with large-scale surveys like Haslam.

Abstract

The interstellar medium is a complex 'ecosystem' with gas constituents in the atomic, molecular, and ionized states, dust, magnetic fields, and relativistic particles. The Canadian Galactic Plane Survey has imaged these constituents with angular resolution of the order of arcminutes. This paper presents radio continuum data at 408 MHz over the area 52 degrees < longitude < 193 degrees, -6.5 degrees < latitude < 8.5 degrees, with an extension to latitude = 21 degrees in the range 97 degrees < longitude < 120 degrees, with angular resolution 2.8' x 2.8' cosec(declination). Observations were made with the Synthesis Telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory as part of the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey. The calibration of the survey using existing radio source catalogs is described. The accuracy of 408-MHz flux densities from the data is 6%. Information on large structures has been incorporated into the data using the single-antenna survey of Haslam (1982). The paper presents the data, describes how it can be accessed electronically, and gives examples of applications of the data to ISM research.