CASA, the Common Astronomy Software Applications for Radio Astronomy
Abstract
CASA, the Common Astronomy Software Applications, is the primary data processing software for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), and is frequently used also for other radio telescopes. The CASA software can handle data from single-dish, aperture-synthesis, and Very Long Baseline Interferometery (VLBI) telescopes. One of its core functionalities is to support the calibration and imaging pipelines for ALMA, VLA, VLA Sky Survey, and the Nobeyama 45 m telescope. This paper presents a high-level overview of the basic structure of the CASA software, as well as procedures for calibrating and imaging astronomical radio data in CASA. CASA is being developed by an international consortium of scientists and software engineers based at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the European Southern Observatory, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and the Joint Institute for VLBI European Research Infrastructure Consortium (JIV-ERIC), under the guidance of NRAO.
- Publication:
-
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- Pub Date:
- November 2022
- DOI:
- 10.1088/1538-3873/ac9642
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2210.02276
- Bibcode:
- 2022PASP..134k4501C
- Keywords:
-
- Single-dish antennas;
- Aperture synthesis;
- Radio astronomy;
- Radio interferometry;
- Long baseline interferometry;
- Astronomy software;
- Open source software;
- Software documentation;
- Astronomy data reduction;
- Astronomy data analysis;
- 1460;
- 53;
- 1338;
- 1346;
- 932;
- 1855;
- 1866;
- 1869;
- 1861;
- 1858;
- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Accepted for publication in PASP (20 pages, 4 figures). Joint publication with CASA-VLBI paper