Has a Deep Field Picture of the Sky Been Captured with a Radio Telescope?

[zuz]

Has anyone ever taken a "deep field" picture of the sky, like Hubble, but with a radio telescope?

 

[Baluncore]

Some of the early radio astronomical survey mapping was done by telescopes like "Big Ear" in the North, or by the Mills Cross in the South.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_State_University_Radio_Observatory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mills_Cross_Telescope

To get deeper detailed images of smaller areas, requires VLBI, with international collaboration. The construction of detailed radio images, from the VLBI time data, requires intensive numerical processing. An optical image can be accumulated, on an image sensor array, which is a faster parallel process.

 

[fresh_42]

To get deeper detailed images of smaller areas, requires VLBI, with international collaboration. The construction of detailed radio images, from the VLBI time data, requires intensive numerical processing. An optical image can be accumulated, on an image sensor array, which is a faster parallel process.

All that exists at FAST but all publications I could find from them were pulsars and FRB and again pulsars, i.e. only the sources that were very bright for the telescope. I wonder whether this is for a reason or due to the relatively young age of FAST.

 

[Baluncore]

All that exists at FAST but all publications I could find from them were pulsars and FRB and again pulsars, i.e. only the sources that were very bright for the telescope.

Deep sky observations require high sensitivity and high resolution. Unfortunately, man-made interference, and nearby bright sources, raise the noise floor of the synthesised images.

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), operating alone, is a single location observatory. Resolution is limited by the 500 metre diameter. FAST finds more pulsars because it has a larger aperture area, and therefore has higher sensitivity than earlier observatories. It can make point measurements, where the signal is the sum of all the beam energy. That is suited to strong signals, or pulsar observations, not deep sky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-hundred-meter_Aperture_Spherical_Telescope

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) has a distributed aperture, so should have over 1000 times the resolution of FAR, since SKA is designed to operate as a long baseline interferometer. That would be more suited to deep sky observations, if you can find and fund the computer time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Kilometre_Array

FAST is located at about 26° North, and zenith limited, so is restricted to the northern sky. It is not as steerable as the elements of the SKA.
The SKA is based in Africa and Australia, with many more steerable elements. It is better positioned to observe the southern sky with the best view of the Milky Way.

 

[pinball1970]

I found this:

https://public.nrao.edu/gallery/vla-deep-field/

 

[zuz]

Thank you. That is just what I was looking for.