Scripts to calibrate the observational data of ER052A and to extract its primary beam model parameters

We attempted to derive the primary beams of various antennas in the European Very-long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Network (EVN) through the use of wide-field observations to expand the field of view (FoV) of EVN observations by applying the inverse of the models. Accurate models of the primary beams of the antennas will allow wide-field observations to be conducted more regularly and have the potential to increase the science output of VLBI active galactic nuclei (AGN) surveys and gravitational lensing. It will also improve the performance of heterogeneous VLBI arrays that incorporate the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

The models were tested on the EVN observation EG078B and were derived mainly from ER052A and N18L3, the latter used as a supplementary dataset. All three of the observations can be found on the EVN Data Archive and are far too large to be included in this dataset. Attached are the calibration and modelling scripts used. EG078B was calibrated using the VLBI Pipeline by Dr. Jack Radcliffe. All of the work was done in Python using popular data libraries such as NumPy, Pandas, and SciPy, as well as the CASA Python toolset, which is freely available.