A Pilot Survey for the H2O Southern Galactic Plane Survey

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doi:10.1071/AS07053

A Pilot Survey for the H₂O Southern Galactic Plane Survey

Andrew J. Walsh ^A ^F, Nadia Lo ^B ^C, Michael G. Burton ^B, Graeme L. White ^A, Cormac R. Purcell ^D, Steven N. Longmore ^E, Chris J. Phillips ^C, Kate J. Brooks ^C

^A Centre for Astronomy, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia
^B School of Physics, University of NSW, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
^C Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia
^D Alan Turing Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
^E Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60, Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
^F Corresponding author. Email: andrew.walsh@jcu.edu.au





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Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia 25(2) 105–113 http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/AS07053
Submitted: 21 January 2008 Accepted: 25 March 2008 Published online: 26 June 2008

Abstract

We describe observations with the Mopra radiotelescope designed to assess the feasibility of the H₂O Maser Southern Galactic Plane Survey. We mapped two one-square-degree regions along the Galactic plane using the new 12-mm receiver and the UNSW Mopra spectrometer. We covered the entire spectrum between 19.5 and 27.5 GHz using this setup with the main aim of finding out which spectral lines can be detected with a quick mapping survey. We report on detected emission from H₂O masers, NH₃ inversion transitions (1,1), (2,2) and (3,3), HC₃N (3–2), as well as several radio recombination lines.

Keywords: masers — surveys — stars: formation — ISM: molecules — Galaxy: structure