Interplanetary Scintillation Observations with a New Generation of Radio Telescopes: First results from the Murchison Widefield Array

Interplanetary scintillation is a powerful technique for remote sensing of the Heliosphere. Previous IPS studies have generally relied on single concentrated collecting areas (either phased arrays or dishes). The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) by contrast is a new-generation instrument consisting of a 128-element interferometer with an extremely wide field of view, and outstanding instantaneous imaging capability. This enables the IPS studies of 1000 sources simultaneously, increasing the density of measurements by orders of magnitude compared with most other instruments.