Zanichelli Alessandra

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Position:
INAF - Istituto di Radioastronomia, Bologna
Italy

Miscellaneous Information

Abstract Reference: 31116
Identifier: P1.32
Presentation: Poster presentation
Key Theme: 1 Reduction and Analysis Algorithms for Large Databases and Vice-versa

Dish Washer: a software tool for RFI mitigation in single-dish radio astronomical observations

Authors:
Zanichelli Alessandra, Favero Enrico, Cantini Federico, Bartolini Marco, Righini Simona, Mack Karl-Heinz, Andrea Orlati, Poppi Sergio, Gaudiomonte Francesco, Serra Giampaolo

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is one of the most pressing problems in cm-wavelength world-wide radio astronomy in particular for single-dish telescope observations. In contrast to interferometers, in single-dish observations the astronomical and RFI signals are added coherently. As a consequence, RFI may easily deteriorate the data and even prevent their scientific exploitation. Due to both the increasing abundance of man-made interfering signals and the improved performance of the telescopes backends, the impact of RFI at the Italian radio telescope sites is now a major concern and strategies for its mitigation are to be applied. In this poster we present the Dish Washer (DW) software for the detection and flagging of Radio Frequency Interference in signals collected by single-dish radio telescopes. Dish Washer has been developed at the Institute of Radioastronomy in the framework of a project of relevant technological interest funded by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. DW provides GUI and command line interface, this last through an interactive python console, and is currently capable to handle data in the standard FITS format in use at the single-dish Italian radio telescopes. Additional data formats from other telescopes can be supported via the integration of appropriate software modules. DW currently implements functionalities for manual interactive flagging plus some level of automatic detection of RFI through dedicated algorithms. Its first public release is foreseen in the coming months as free software under GNU General Public License.