Editing Very-long-baseline interferometry (section)

== e-VLBI == <!-- NOTE: [[e-VLBI]] and [[eVLBI]] redirect to this section. Please fix the redirects if you change the section name. -->
[[File:E-vlbi science.jpg|thumb|400px|Image of the source [[IRC +10420]]. The lower resolution image on the left was taken with the UK's MERLIN array and shows the shell of [[maser]] emission produced by an expanding shell of gas with a diameter about 200 times that of the [[Solar System]]. The shell of gas was ejected from a supergiant star (10 times the mass of the Sun) at the centre of the emission about 900 years ago. The corresponding EVN e-VLBI image (right) shows the much finer structure of the masers made visible with the higher resolution of the VLBI array.]]

VLBI has traditionally operated by recording the signal at each telescope on [[Magnetic tape data storage|magnetic tape]]s or [[Hard disk drive|disk]]s, and shipping those to the correlation center for replay. In 2004 it became possible to connect VLBI radio telescopes in close to real-time, while still employing the local time references of the VLBI technique, in a technique known as e-VLBI. In Europe, six [[radio telescopes]] of the [[European VLBI Network| European VLBI Network (EVN)]] were connected with Gigabit per second links via their National Research Networks and the Pan-European research network [[GEANT2]], and the first astronomical experiments using this new technique were successfully conducted.<ref name="JIVE2004">{{cite press release |last1=Diamond |first1=Philip |last2=van Langevelde |first2=Huib |last3=Conway |first3=John| url=http://www.jive.nl/astronomers-demonstrate-global-internet-telescope | title=Astronomers Demonstrate a Global Internet Telescope |publisher=Joint Institute for VLBI |date= 5 October 2004| access-date=9 December 2022}}</ref>

The image to the right shows the first science produced by the European VLBI Network using e-VLBI. The data from each of the telescopes were routed through the [[GÉANT2]] network and on through [[SURFnet]] to be the processed in real time at the European Data Processing centre at [[Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe|JIVE]].<ref name="JIVE2004" />