GASS: the Parkes Galactic all-sky survey II. Stray-radiation correction and second data release

Context. The Parkes Galactic all-sky survey (GASS) is a survey of Galactic atomic hydrogen (Hi) emission in the southern sky observed with the Parkes 64-m Radio Telescope. The first data release was published by McClure-Griffiths et al. (2009). Aims. We remove instrumental effects that affect the GASS and present the second data release. Methods. We calculate the stray-radiation by convolving the all-sky response of the Parkes antenna with the brightness temperature distribution from the Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) all sky 21-cm line survey, with major contributions from the 30-m dish of the Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomia (IAR) in the southern sky. Remaining instrumental baselines are corrected using the LAB data for a first guess of emission-free baseline regions. Radio frequency interference is removed by median filtering. Results. After applying these corrections to the GASS we find an excellent agreement with the Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) survey. The GASS is the highest spatial resolution, most sensitive, and is currently the most accurate Hi survey of the Galactic Hi emission in the southern sky. We provide a web interface for generation and download of FITS cubes.