Starfish pattern
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by Cardiffian
I'm guessing the starfish pattern in the radio telescope image is an interference effect.
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by ivywong scientist, admin
Yes, @Cardiffian. The snowflake structure is an artefact from our observations & processing. This is mainly due to the Y-shape array configuration of the VLA telescope.
If you're interested, we have 2 blog entries explaining the general idea of radio interferometry (the technique we use to obtain the radio images here):
http://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2014/06/24/radio-interferometry-fourier-transforms-and-the-guts-of-radio-interferometry-part-1/.
http://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2014/07/01/radio-interferometry-fourier-transforms-and-the-guts-of-radio-interferometry-part-2/Posted
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by Cardiffian
Thanks very much, the Y shape would explain the kaleidoscope effect.
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by ivywong scientist, admin
You're very welcome! 😃
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