Table Of ContentThomas Lauterbach
Radio Astronomy
Small Radio Telescopes: Basics,
Technology and Observations
essentials
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Thomas Lauterbach
Radio Astronomy
Small Radio Telescopes: Basics, Tech-
nology, and Observations
Thomas Lauterbach
Nürnberg, Germany
ISSN 2731-3107 ISSN 2731-3115 (electronic)
essentials
ISBN 978-3-658-36034-4 ISBN 978-3-658-36035-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-36035-1
© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022
This book is a translation of the original German edition „Radioastronomie” by Lauterbach,
Thomas, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH in 2020. The translation was done
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Preface
Radio astronomy is a fascinating field of research – the first image of a black hole,
the elucidation of the spiral structure of the Milky Way, the discovery of cosmic
background radiation, and the first indirect observation of gravitational waves are
just some of the spectacular discoveries made with radio telescopes. For this rea-
son, the Astronomical Society in the European Metropolitan Region Nuremberg
decided to establish a special interest group under the leadership of the author in
order to set up a radio telescope at Regiomontanus Observatory, Nuremberg, Ger-
many, and thus also to be able to provide the public with insights into this field of
astronomy.
Unlike classical astronomy with its view through a telescope, humans have no
senses for radio radiation – and this results in the difficulty of understanding the
basics of radio astronomy and interpreting its measurements. And this subject does
not make it easy for us – in addition to astronomical and physical knowledge,
knowledge of radio frequency technology and digital signal processing is also re-
quired. These challenges have been successfully met by the special interest group:
In monthly seminars, the necessary knowledge was acquired, and a concept for a
radio telescope was developed and tested in preliminary experiments. Finally, on
April 26, 2019, the radio telescope named after Nobel laureate Arno Penzias could
be ceremoniously inaugurated.
The radio astronomy tours, which have been organized repeatedly since then,
met with gratifyingly great interest, raised the question of the didactics of radio
astronomy as a new challenge. Presentations were developed and exemplary mea-
surements and their explanations were prepared. But the question of some visitors,
if it is possible to read all this somewhere, had to be answered negatively, because
books about radio astronomy are only available in English and only on university
v
vi Preface
level. This gave the impulse for this introductory book first published in German
and now in an English translation. Many who begin to study radio astronomy,
whether at universities, schools, observatories, or even out of personal inclination,
will do so with comparatively modest radio telescopes – with dishes with diameters
of a few meters. In addition to the fundamentals of radio astronomy, it is the tech-
nology and observational capabilities of such “small” radio telescopes that are the
focus of this book. Academic radio astronomical research and the technology of the
“large” radio telescopes can only be touched upon. Likewise, the detailed explana-
tion of some technical terms had to be omitted. They were nevertheless used, with
the “so-called” in front, in order not to withhold them from the reader and to en-
courage them to delve deeper into the subject matter with the help of the indicated
further literature or the Internet.
I would like to express my special thanks to the members of the special interest
group and to the students at Nuremberg Institute of Technology (Technische Hoch-
schule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm) who worked on projects related to the con-
struction of the radio telescope. Without their enthusiasm, commitment, expertise,
and diligence, neither the radio telescope nor this book would have come into be-
ing. Furthermore, I would like to thank the board of directors of the Astronomical
Society in the European Metropolitan Region Nuremberg for their continuous en-
thusiastic support as well as the “Zukunftsstiftung der Sparkasse Nürnberg” for
their financial support of the radiotelescope project. Last but not least, I would like
to thank the publishing house and Dr. Edelhäuser as the editor for many sugges-
tions and the pleasant cooperation.
I hope all readers enjoy their introduction to radio astronomy and gain interest-
ing insights!
Nürnberg, Germany Thomas Lauterbach
What You Can Find in This essential
• A brief history of radio astronomy and its discoveries from the first signals of
cosmic origin to the imaging of a black hole.
• An overview of electromagnetic waves and the related physical quantities
• An overview of the origin and properties of cosmic radio radiation
• How a radio telescope works and how to evaluate the measurements with it
• Examples of typical observations you can make with a small radio telescope
• An outlook on interferometry, current research topics in radio astronomy, and
how to get started in radio astronomy yourself.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction: What Is Radio Astronomy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 The Development of Astronomy Up to the Nineteenth Century . . . . . 1
1.2 Electromagnetic Waves and Radio Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Karl Jansky and Grote Reber: The Beginning of Radio Astronomy . . 3
1.4 The Further Development of Radio Astronomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 The Nuremberg “Arno Penzias Radio Telescope” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 What Are Electromagnetic Waves? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Basic Properties of Electromagnetic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 The Spectrum of Electromagnetic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Which Electromagnetic Waves Can Be Used for Radio
Astronomy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.4 Physical Quantities of Electromagnetic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.5 Cosmic Radio Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.5.1 Thermal Radiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.5.2 Non-thermal Continuous Radiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5.3 The 21-cm Radiation of Neutral Hydrogen . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 How Does a Radio Telescope Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1 The Components of a Radio Telescope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2 Properties of a Parabolic Antenna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.3 Characterisation of the Receiver by the Noise Temperature . . . . . . . 29
3.4 Signal Processing and Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.5 Determination of the Radiation Temperature and Intensity
of a Cosmic Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.6 Antenna Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
ix
x Contents
4 What Can You Observe with a Radio Telescope? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.1 Radio Radiation from the Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2 The Cassiopeia A Radio Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.3 The 21-cm Radio Radiation from the Milky Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.4 Creation of Radio Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5 Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.1 Interferometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.2 Radio Astronomical Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.3 Own Entry into Radio Astronomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Sources and Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
