by: Marcel Gouws (SARAO, South Africa) and Marjolein Verkouter (JIVE, The Netherlands)
MeerKAT is an SKA precursor telescope consisting of 64 dishes distributed across 8 kilometers within the Northern Cape region of South Africa. MeerKAT has accumulated an impressive scientific output since its inauguration in 2018, and adding the capability to operate it as a VLBI station has remained a long-standing goal.
Willem Baan, J.N.H.S. Aditya, Tao An, Hans-Rainer Kloeckner
Kelvin Wandia
Hyeon-Woo Jeong, Sang-Sung Lee, Whee Yeon Cheong, Jae-Young Kim, Jee Won Lee, Sincheol Kang, Sang-Hyun Kim, B. Rani, Jongho Park, and Mark. A. Gurwell
REBECCA LIN, MARTEN H. VAN KERKWIJK, FRANZ KIRSTEN, UE-LI PEN, AND ADAM T. DELLER
Methanol masers at 6.7 GHz have been frequently targeted by VLBI users for their bright emission and multiple uses in radio astronomy. In addition to their uses in trigonometric annual parallax measurements, it is their reliable and exclusive association with intermediate- and high-mass protostars which make them a favourite maser transition among star formation astronomers investigating the higher mass regimes. VLBI images of the 6.7 GHz methanol maser often show rings of up to 100s of AU around protostars, or arcs of maser clouds, or seemingly random distributions.
The Opticon RadioNet Pilot (ORP) is one of the European Commission's "pilot" programs under the EC H2020, launched in March 2021. This four-year project brings together 37 institutions to support and develop seamless access to radio and optical facilities.
