More exciting SKAO news! Fwd: SKAO-New: First fringes obtained with SKA-Mid

[Theresa Wiegert]

Feliz año nuevo a todos! 

The new year brings some great news (for the astronomy world at least): SKA-Mid - the South African part of SKAO, had its first fringes, the equivalence of first light for an interferometer! An accomplishment we have been looking forward to :D See the message below. 

Un saludo :) 

Theresa

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Bourke, Tyler" <Tyler....@skao.int>

Subject: SKAO-New: First fringes obtained with SKA-Mid

Date: 9 January 2026 at 05:28:19 GMT-5

To: "Bourke, Tyler" <Tyler....@skao.int>

Dear colleagues,

 

Happy New Year!

 

As a welcome to 2026 we are happy to let you know that the first SKA-Mid fringes have been obtained, using two dishes tracking a bright quasar for a short time. This represents a major milestone in the growth of SKA-Mid, and is thanks to the hard work of many teams involved in the construction, integration, verification and commissioning of the dishes and the array. 

 

The announcement was made at the winter AAS meeting this week, and the press release can be read here: https://www.skao.int/en/news/693/ska-mid-milestone

 

The observations were obtained on 5 December 2025 of J1939-6342, an object that should be familiar to many of you.  The figure below shows the amplitude and phase toward J1939 across Band 2, as observed with a single baseline between dishes SKA001 and SKA100, which are separated by 439 m.

 

 

The figure shows the amplitude and phase data averaged over the 5 minute observation period (top panels) and the waterfall plots showing their variation with time.  The phases are flat as a function of frequency, as expected for an isolated point source at the center of the field. Additionally, they are constant in time. This indicates that the system is stable and working as expected. Regions of strong, well-known RFI from geolocation satellites can be clearly seen in the amplitude plots. [Image produced by Shin’ichiro Asayama from data taken by the System AIV team with support from the ATLAS team]

 

This result builds on the single-dish HI spectra obtained earlier in 2025 that we have shared previously with you, and shows that we are on track to obtaining a first image with SKA-Mid in 2026, following the great success in obtaining a first image with SKA-Low in 2025.  

 

Congratulations to everyone involved in meeting this milestone.  SKA-Mid is alive.

 

Best wishes,

 

Dr Betsey Adams 

SKA-Mid Lead Commissioning Scientist

SKA Observatory

 

Dr Tyler Bourke (he/him)

Senior Observatory Scientist

SKA Observatory

 

 

 

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~~~

Theresa Wiegert, PhD

SKAO science community liaison/researcher

Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC)

Address: Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n 18008, Granada, Spain

Email: twie...@iaa.es

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