Questions tagged [radio-telescope]
Questions related to the instruments used to perform observations in the radio frequency range.
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Why are radio telescopes often built into natural depressions?
Radio telescopes are often built into sink holes or natural depressions in the landscape.* This is opposed to optical telescopes which are usually placed on mountains to avoid as much atmosphere as ...
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How do we get -0.4 mJy/beam in the the 1.28 GHz MeerKAT Galactic Center Mosaic?
Dr. Becky's Feb. 11, 2022 video Move over JWST! 5 new telescopes to get excited for makes a quick mention of this image produced by the Meerkat array and published in Heywood et al. 2022 The 1.28 GHz ...
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Do high power radar astronomers try to avoid beaming power at (at least some) artificial satellites as they pass overhead?
This answer to "Next Generation Arecibo Telescope (NGAT)... would combine a 314-metre-wide platform with a swarm of 9-metre dishes on top" What would that look like? links to an interesting ...
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"Next Generation Arecibo Telescope (NGAT)... would combine a 314-metre-wide platform with a swarm of 9-metre dishes on top" What would that look like?
In Nature News' August 11, 2023 Closing down an icon: will Arecibo Observatory ever do science again? found in The Observatory there is discussion of the Next Generation Arecibo Telescope (NGAT):
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Greetings to Altair: what is the probability of detecting a return message, assuming one was sent?
Greetings to Altair was a 1983 transmission to Altair, 16.7 light years distant, sent on the 46m Stanford radio telescope, known as "The Dish". [Quast 2018]
Assuming an alien civilisation ...
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Measuring Expansion Rate of Crab Nebula with Radio Spectrum Scan
I am a high school student who is into radio astronomy, and I have the opportunity to use Green Bank’s 20m radio telescope for a practice research project. I would like to use my observations to very ...
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Questions about the Cocconi Morrison paper on interstellar communication
I have been reading the paper by Cocconi and Morrison on interstellar communication and I have trouble understanding their formulas.
The paper begins by stating, that a star similar to the quiet sun ...
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How will China's Xuntian space telescope use its Terahertz capability? THz Spectroscopy? Imaging? Something else?
An Update on the Chinese Space Station Telescope Project Hu Zhan, National Astronomical Observatories, CAS, KIAA, Peking University, On behalf of the CSST Team, ISSI-BJ Workshop: Weak gravitational ...
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Are there any new/latest/recent radio sky surveys' data release which is publicly accessible?
There are many sky surveys that have been conducted by telescopes in different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum like DSS (Digitized Sky Survey), SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey), WISE (wide-...
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What's the formula of SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) to dipole antenna array (eg, LOFAR) look like?
It was wellknown that the SNR of single dish telescope reads
$$s/n=P_s/P_n=\frac{P_s}{T_n}\sqrt\frac{t}{B},$$
where $P_s$
is the collected power, $T_n$
the noise temperature, $t$
the measure time and $...
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How does Very Long Baseline Interferometry work?
According to internet sources, this technique increases the effective diameter of the telescope, thus improving the angular resolution of the telescope. However I don't understand how this actually ...
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SKA 101: How will it "perform the most precise tests of Einstein's theories" and Australia & South Africa arrays be "made to work seamlessly together"
The BBC's December 7, 2022 SKA: Construction to begin on world's biggest telescope includes the following:
It will perform the most precise tests of Einstein's theories
and
The first major ...
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We are making a 5 meter diameter radio telescope dish by using metal mesh and need some advice and/or reference designs [closed]
We are making a 5 meter diameter radio telescope dish.
What metal should we use and what must be the size of the mesh if the targeted frequency is 1430 Hz?
Also what might a simple but stable ...
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What's the most distant radio message we could detect with today's radio telescopes, if the message is initially broadcasted in all directions?
An additional assumption is that broadcasting the message may require using a medium-sized star, like the Sun, for an hour, by e.g. Dysoning it.
I don't know enough to answer the question myself. If ...
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In radio astronomy, do two dimensional sensors exist?
Is there an equivalent of CCD/CMOS sensors for non-optical wavelengths?
(not looking for alternative/indirect methods like interferometry)
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What is the maximum distance we could detect incidental radio signals from aliens? [duplicate]
I've been getting interested in the Fermi Paradox discourse again, and something's been bugging me about the assumptions we could actually detect incidental radio signals from aliens, or vice versa.
...
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Where can I get a step by step guide to use CASA for obtaining a radio image of a planet like say Jupiter?
I intend to use CASA for processing ALMA data for Jupiter and obtain a proper radio image for Jupiter.
However, is there any specific step by step guide for the same just as is the following for TW ...
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In terms of results, how similar is a bunch of telescopes across the globe to an Earth-sized telescope?
The Event Horizon Telescope emulates an Earth-sized telescope by syncing a bunch of radio telescopes across the planet to do take pictures with a small enough angular resolution to take pictures of a ...
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How and where can I get the continuum and/or FITS data for Jupiter and Saturn from ALMA, GMRT and VLA Telescopes?
I intend to process and analyze the radio images and emissions from Jupiter and Saturn. I wish to get data from ALMA, GMRT and VLA Telescopes. Requesting you to please guide me as to how do I access ...
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Do circa 1 THz radio telescope front end amplifiers actually down convert before amplifying? At what frequency does amplification become untenable?
A discussion of how astronomers view where "radio" ends and "infrared" begins under What does the celestial sphere look like in thermal IR? led me to wonder just how high of a ...
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Why aren't concentrated solar power plants use for astronomical observations of some type?
Concentrated solar power plants use reflecting surfaces to gather the sun rays for energy production.
Currently they sit idle at night and are not used for anything.
These have huge collection areas, ...
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How are radio telescopes pointed?
In the past, I worked as a programmer in a radio astronomy station, and since then I have a question on my mind.
To observe a star with a telescope, we locate its location with our eyes and then we ...
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Is it possible to make (or buy kit) DIY portable radio telescope that I can place on the balcony like optical telescope?
I want to have a small radio telescope to use on balcony instead of optical when sky is cloudy (it is very often).
Is it possible? What objects can be observed by that telescope? Is it possible to use ...
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If we put a radio telescope on Mars and use it in array with earth radio telescopes, how much will we able to see?
If we put a radio telescope on Mars and use it in array with earth radio telescopes, how much will we able to see? Will it allow us to see planets, like we do with black hole?
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TPoint software, INDAT command - Format 4 (ALTAZ)
I am working (in fact, trying to work) with TPoint for improving a solar telescope pointing calibration (SST, in Casleo, AR) and stumbled on the input data for INDAT command. SST is a multibeam solar ...
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How would the surface of Mars compare with the Atacama desert for millimeter wave (and shorter) radio astronomy?
In this answer to What kind of experiments would a scientist do on Mars? I suggest that the resemblance of the ALMA array's site in the Atacama Desert to the surface of Mars suggests millimeter ...
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Why Nyquist Sampling Rate depends on Bandwidth and not max frequency?
Is the Nyquist sampling rate same for different bands if those bands have same bandwith? E.g. Would the Nyquist Sampling rate be same for 1000-1400 MHz band as for 100-500 MHz band because both the ...
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rms noise, confusion and dynamic range in radio images
I have been trying to understand imaging in radio astronomy. Below are some of my questions related to it and my understanding of their answers. I am not very confident about my understanding of them ...
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How to properly compare radio to optical/NIR images?
I mainly work with radio continuum data and recently I started working on some HST hydrogen recombination line datasets to compare with the radio data that I have, but I'm very confused about what is ...
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Is Carl Sagan's famous "snowflake" quote correct?
“The total amount of energy from outside the solar system ever received by all the radio telescopes on the planet Earth is less than the energy of a single snowflake striking the ground.”
― Carl Sagan,...
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How, precisely, do radio astronomers detect (and record) the phases of waves for interferometry?
Interferometry is always in the news, and at radio frequencies it has been for a long time...
The popular press always talks about directly 'interfering' two waves as they come in, but can they tell ...
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What is notable about LOFAR's sub-arcsecond radio resolution of distant galaxies? Does lower freq. range enable new capabilities that mm wave can't?
The BBC's Astronomers see galaxies in ultra-high definition covers some news related to papers in Astronomy & Astrophysics' dedicated, open access issue Sub-arcsecond imaging with the ...
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If the visibility function is the Fourier transform of the sky brightness distribution, why do you need the dirty beam and dirty image to find it?
In radio astronomy, the dirty image is equal to the inverse Fourier transform of the uv-plane coverage times the sampled visibilities. The dirty image is also equal to the convolution of the "...
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Do radio telescopes see other stars better at night?
As you know, we don’t see stars with the naked eye during the day because of the visible glare of our Sun.
As I understand our Sun emits radio frequency waves, too. Is there a radio ‘glare’ from the ...
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What could a cloud of mini radio dishes see?
Suppose an astronomer gave a 1 m radio dish to 500 people scattered over the face of the Earth and connected them to the internet. The people are directed to set their radio antennae up in their ...
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Did the Spectr-R space-based radio telescope use on-board accelerometer to measure non-gravitational acceleration for baseline correction?
This answer to Why is space-based VLBI scattering sub-structure "Hopefully, a new promising tool to reconstruct the true image of observed background target(s)"? summarizes the contribution ...
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What radio frequency ranges are most beneficial for astronomy?
I cannot get the idea of citizen radio astronomy out of my head, and choosing an antenna (design) heavily depends on the desired frequency range.
The Arecibo telescope as my gold standard operated 300 ...
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Is Sofia a radio telescope proper?
I usually think of SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy as an infrared optical telescope:
SOFIA uses a 2.5 m (8.2 ft) reflector telescope, which has an oversized, 2.7 m (8.9 ft)...
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How can we install a radar on radio telescopes like FAST or GMRT?
Recently I came across an article mentioning that ever since the failure of Arecibo telescope, we only have one asteroid radar imaging telescope which is Goldstone observatory.
The article also ...
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What is the significance of the velocity resolution in spectral line observations using radio interferometry?
I've always struggled to conceptualize the term "velocity resolution" in spectral observations. In principle, it is simple to calculate. For example, one can take the spectral width and ...
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What is the significance of using baseline pairs in radio interferometry?
Radio interferometry utilizes arrays of smaller telescopes that are linked together to synthesize a larger aperture telescope. Astronomical radio observatories, such as the Very Large Array in New ...
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Open source library to calculate image from signals of a distributed set of radio dishes?
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Q&A "How To Make Images With a Radio Telescope" says
The most straightforward way to make a radio image with your satellite antenna system, ...
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Can one build a distributed radio telescope?
I understand some radio telescopes are built as arrays of receivers. Could one build an array from a heterogeneous set of receivers in scattered locations? Suppose a large number of persons each ...
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Could we carve a large radio dish in the Antarctic ice?
Could we carve a large radio dish in the Antarctic ice that could replace the Arecibo Observatory? Could this work, and what would be some potential limitations?
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Recommend a radio calibration target for amateur radio telescope
I have a small antenna and radio system that can receive frequencies between 1MHz and 1GHz. The system has a discone antenna. I plan to do some aperture synthesis based on the daily rotation of the ...
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Opening VLA Export Format data on Windows
I recently downloaded some data from the NRAO archive.
It came as a file in the "VLA export format" with the extension .xp1. From what I gather I can open this using some software called ...
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Maritime telescopes: Stabilisation requirements for optical vs. radio telescopes?
SOFIA stands for Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. She says:
My telescope stays stable with a spherical bearing, shock absorbers, and gyroscopes.
I suppose a similar system would ...
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Current topics on Radio Astronomy and looking for advice
Background and Question: I'm an undergraduate student interested on Radio Astronomy. I consider myself enthusiastic about it and I project myself following this "path" so I'd like, ...
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Do ASKAP and ALMA have "fast dump" interferometric modes? Can they see and perhaps report Fast Radio Bursts in real time?
Chatterjee et al 2017 The direct localization of a fast radio burst and its host nicely shows a VLA detection of a repeating FRB in 5 millisecond steps nicely demonstrating the dispersion slope ...
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The role of 'the interference of waves' in VLBIs'
I've been trying to find out how VLBIs work. It says in this book I've read that many radio telescopes around the world work in tandem to use the interference of waves to get a clearer picture of ...
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