From the Director

For example, last week witnessed the first on-sky tests of an interim signal processing upgrade that will significantly increase the instantaneous throughput of the SMA, as well as greatly increase the total bandwidth which can be imaged with high spectral resolution. The article 'First Light For The New SMA Digital Back End' (pg. 10) illustrates a single baseline spectrum taken towards MWC349 using the new SMA FX Packetized Digital Back End, based on CASPER technology, in parallel with the existing SMA correlator.