THE FOURTH VLBA CALIBRATOR SURVEY: VCS4

This paper presents the fourth extension to the VLBA Calibrator Survey, containing 258 new sources not previously observed with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). This survey, based on three 24 hr Very Long Baseline Array observing sessions, fills remaining areas on the sky above declination -40° where the calibrator density is less than one source within a 4° radius disk in any given direction. The share of these areas was reduced from 4.6% to 1.9%. Source positions were derived from astrometric analysis of group delays determined at 2.3 and 8.6 GHz frequency bands using the Calc/Solve software package. The VCS4 catalog of source positions, plots of correlated flux density versus projected baseline length, contour plots, and fits files of naturally weighted CLEAN images, as well as calibrated visibility function files, are available online and can be found using the search keyword "VCS4."