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Description
The Very Large Array (VLA) Low-Frequency Sky Survey (VLSS: see Cohen et al. 2007, AJ, 134, 1245) covers 95% of the 3 pi sr of sky area above -30 degrees Declination at most RAs (complete above -10 degrees Declination, while in some areas data are available down to Declinations of -36 degrees) at a frequency of 74 MHz, a resolution of 80", and an average rms map sensitivity of sigma ~ 0.130 Jy/beam. The survey was intended to serve as a low-frequency counterpart to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)-VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) at 1400 MHz, allowing spectral information to be compiled for statistical samples of sources. It also provides a low-frequency sky model. In their 2012 and 2014 reference papers, the authors present the details of improvements to data processing and analysis which were used for a re-reduction of the VLSS data, which they dub the VLSS redux or VLSSr. They used the VLSS catalogue as a sky model to correct the ionospheric distortions in the data and create a new set of sky maps and corresponding catalog at 73.8 MHz. The VLSS Redux (VLSSr) has a resolution of 75", and an average map rms noise level of sigma ~ 0.1 Jy beam<sup>-1</sup>. The clean bias is 0.66 x sigma and the theoretical largest angular size is 36 arcminutes. Six previously unimaged fields are included in the VLSSr, which has an unbroken sky coverage over 9.3 steradian above an irregular southern boundary. The final catalog includes 92,965 sources (in the abstract of Lane et al. (2014) it states 92.964 sources). The VLSSr improves upon the original VLSS in a number of areas including imaging of large sources, image sensitivity, and clean bias; however the most critical improvement is the replacement of an inaccurate primary beam correction which caused source flux errors which vary as a function of radius to the nearest pointing center in the VLSS. This table was initially created by the HEASARC in December 2012, based on the FITS file CATALOG.FIT obtained from the NRAO website at <a href="http://www.cv.nrao.edu/vlss/CATALOG/">http://www.cv.nrao.edu/vlss/CATALOG/</a>. It was updated in July 2014 with the the table data from the latest file on the NRAO website (which was marked as last modified on 26 August 2013). Some of the values for the name parameter in the HEASARC's implementation of this table were corrected in April 2018. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
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