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The Mopra Southern Galactic Plane CO Survey — Data Release 3

The Mopra CO survey of the Southern Galactic Plane is being conducted with the Mopra millimetre-wave telescope in Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia. The survey is designed to map the distribution and dynamics of the carbon monoxide molecule (CO) along a 120 degree sector of the Galactic Plane, from l=250-370°. The principal scientific motivations are to study how molecular clouds are formed in space, and to examine the nature of TeV gamma-ray sources observed with H.E.S.S and the forthcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array.

Data Release 3 contains observations of fifty square degrees of the Mopra carbon monoxide (CO) survey of the Southern Galactic Plane, covering Galactic longitudes l = 300–350° and latitudes |b| ≤ 0.5°. These data have been taken at 0.6arcminute spatial resolution and 0.1kms−1 spectral resolution, providing an unprecedented view of the molecular clouds and gas of the Southern Galactic Plane in the 109–115 GHz J = 1–0 transitions of 12CO, 13CO, C18O and C17O.

DR3 supersedes the previous data releases where appropriate due to subtle improvements in the data reduction process, described in the paper. DR3 is presented as a series of fits files covering a square degree for each isotopologue, separated by half a degree along the Galactic plane (and named for the centre of the cube in longitude). Each data cube has been packaged with the corresponding Tsys, beam coverage and RMS noise fits images for each line. Two velocity coverages are available:

  • Vfull covers [−1000,+1000] km s−1 for 12CO ranges (and a smaller range for the other lines).
  • Vcrop covers the velocity range [−150, +50] km s−1 for each line, as illustrated in the paper. No emission has as yet been detected outside this range, and it is expected that most users will wish to download these files.

The data provided here may be freely used for the purposes of scientific research so long as it is appropriately acknowledged and the source work referenced. Collaboration with the authors is welcome and encouraged.

The appropriate papers to reference are:

The Mopra Southern Galactic Plane CO Survey - Data Release 3, Braiding. C., Wong, G.F., Maxted, N.I., Romano, D., Burton, M.G., Blackwell, R., Filipović, M.D., Freeman M.S.R., Indermuehle, B., Lau, J., Rebolledo, D., Rowell, G., Snoswell, C., Tothill, N.F.H., Voisin, F., & de Wilt, P., 2018, PASA, 35, remaining details, doi, to follow. The Mopra Southern Galactic Plane CO Survey, Burton, M.G., Braiding, C., Glueck, C., Goldsmith, P., Hawkes, J., Hollenbach, D.J., Kulesa, C., Martin, C.L., Pineda, J.L., Rowell, G., Simon, R., Stark, A.A., Stutzki, J., Tothill, N.J.H., Urquhart, J.S., Walker, C., Walsh, A.J. & Wolfire, M., 2013. PASA, 30, e044 doi:10.1017/pasa.2013.22 (28pp).

The following acknowledgement to the facility and instrumentation used to collect the data should also be included: The Mopra CO data were obtained using the Mopra radio telescope, a part of the Australia Telescope National Facility. The University of New South Wales (UNSW) digital filter bank (the UNSW-MOPS) used for the observations with Mopra was provided with support from the Australian Research Council (ARC), UNSW, Sydney and Monash Universities, as well as the CSIRO.

Data and Resources

Data Portal Metadata

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Author Catherine Braiding
Maintainer Catherine Braiding
Last Updated August 13, 2018, 15:54 (Australia/Sydney)
Publish Date June 22, 2018, 13:05 (Australia/Sydney)