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Radio Intensity and Polarization Imaging

The radio continuum observations of the USS objects were carried out with the VLA as part of our multi-frequency study of the 34 4C ultra steep spectrum sample (Chambers et al. 1987, 1996a). With the identification of these high redshift objects however, we re-observed them to obtain the deeper images presented here. Images with 1.2" resolution at 20 cm (1465 MHz), 6 cm (4885 MHz), and 2 cm (14965 MHz) were obtained in matched VLA arrays (A,B, &C) so observations at different frequencies had similar UV coverage and could be directly compared with each other. High spatial resolution (0.4" and 0.12") observations were also obtained for several sources in A array at 6 cm and 2 cm and in 2 cm in B array. Phase calibration was done with nearby phase calibrators, and the instrumental polarization was determined from repeated observations of one phase calibrator over a range of hour angles. The fringe amplitudes were calibrated relative to the standard VLA flux calibrators 3C48 and 3C286. The data was reduced using the NRAO AIPS software package. Self-calibration was applied to improve the dynamic range of the maps using 2 iterations of self-calibration for phase corrections and one iteration for both phase and amplitude corrections.


M.Bremer@sron.ruu.nl
Wed May 29 16:34:20 MET DST 1996