H2O southern galactic plane survey (HOPS) astronomical website

Brief description

Survey of 100 square degrees of our Galaxy in radio emission, collected with the Mopra radio telescope. Website URL is http://www.ast.leeds.ac.uk/hops/

Full description

HOPS is a survey of selected bands in the 12mm window with the Mopra radio-telescope. HOPS covers 100 square degrees of the sky, starting from l=290 and continuing through the Galactic centre (l=0) and through to l=30. The survey width is 1 degree in Galactic latitude (ie. | b | ¾0.5 degrees), centred on the Galactic plane. The observations have been conducted over the summer months, when the telescope is unavailable for 3mm observations, but the conditions are still good enough for 12mm observations. HOPS observations were completed by the end of May, 2010, with approximately 6 weeks of observations each summer, starting in 2008. The aim of HOPS is to provide an untargeted survey of water masers towards the inner Galaxy. This will allow a direct comparison of the occurrence of water and methanol masers (using the results of the Methanol Multibeam Survey). We will be able to determine how much overlap there is between the two masers, which will help us understand the onset and end of the maser phase in the context of star formation. An untargeted survey will also tell us about the relative prevalence of water masers in different astrophysical objects, such as sites of low/high mass star formation or evolved stars. Using the (1,1), (2,2) and (3,3) inversion transitions of ammonia, we will not only be able to determine where the high density gas lies, but we can also derive its temperature and column density. This work will focus on identifying new sites of high mass star formation that may not show up as infrared sources. We are able to cover 16 bands simultaneously, which allows us to search for emission from many spectral lines.

Notes

The HOPS project is lead by A/Prof Andrew Walsh (JCU) in collaboration with Dr Steven Longmore (ESO, formerly CFA) and Dr Cormac Purcell (Uni. of Sydney, formerly Uni. of Leeds and JBCA).

Dataset format is FITS (Flexible Image Transport System).