galaxies Article The Power of (Near) Simultaneous Multi-Frequency Observations for mm-VLBI and Astrometry María J. Rioja 1,2,3,*,†, Richard Dodson 1,†, José L. Gómez 4,†, Sol N. Molina 4,†, Taehyun Jung 5,† and Bong Won Sohn 5,† 1 International Centre for Radio Astronomy, M468, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, 6009 Perth, Australia;
[email protected] 2 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Astronomy and Space Science, 26 Dick Perry Avenue, 6151 Kensington, Australia 3 Observatorio Astronómico Nacional-IGN, Alfonso XII, 3 y 5, 28014 Madrid, Spain 4 Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía-CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, E-18008 Granada, Spain;
[email protected] (J.L.G.);
[email protected] (S.N.M.) 5 Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, 776 Daedeokdae-ro, Yuseong-gu, 305-348 Daejeon, Korea;
[email protected] (T.J.);
[email protected] (B.W.S.) * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +61-08-6488-7849 † These authors contributed equally to this work. Academic Editor: Emilio Elizalde Received: 23 December 2016; Accepted: 17 January 2017; Published: 23 January 2017 Abstract: Simultaneous or near-simultaneous observations at multiple frequency bands have the potential to overcome the fundamental limitation imposed by the atmospheric propagation in mm-VLBI observations. The propagation effects place a severe limit in the sensitivity achievable in mm-VLBI, reducing the time over which the signals can be coherently combined, and preventing the use of phase referencing and astrometric measurements. We present two demonstrations of the power of (near) simultaneous multi-frequency observations with the KVN and VLBA, and our recently developed analysis strategies to enable new measurements at mm-VLBI.