A 4.8 and 8.6 GHz Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud: The Images

Detailed 4.8 and 8.6 GHz radio images of the entire Small Magellanic Cloud with half-power beamwidths of 35'' at 4.8 GHz and 22'' at 8.6 GHz have been obtained using the Australia Telescope Compact Array. A total of 3564 mosaic positions were used to cover an area of 45 on a side. Full polarimetric observations were made. These images have sufficient spatial resolution (~9 and 6 pc, respectively) and sensitivity (3σ of 1.5 mJy beam–1) to identify most of the individual supernova remnants and H II regions and also, in combination with available data from the Parkes 64 m telescope, the structure of the smooth emission in that galaxy. In addition, limited data using the sixth antenna at 4.5-6 km baselines are available to distinguish bright point sources (< 3 and 2 arcsec, respectively) and to help estimate sizes of individual sources smaller than the resolution of the full survey. The resultant database will be valuable for statistical studies and comparisons with X-ray, optical and infrared surveys of the Small Magellanic Cloud with similar resolution. The images and calibrated uv data are publicly available in FITS format.