Tools of Radio Astronomy

This textbook addresses students as well as practitioners. It attempts to give an outline of the methods and tools of radio astronomy needed by the astronomer who wants to relate the message from interstellar space to physical processes. It gives a unifie

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S 1{0 OMY A D \STROPHY ICS LIB ARY I. Appenzeller, Heidelberg, Germany G. Bomer, Garching, Germany A. Burkert, Heidelberg, Germany M.A. Dopita, Canberra, Australia T. Encrenaz, Meudon, France M. Harwit, Washington, DC, USA R. Kippenhahn, Gottingen, Germany J. Lequeux, Paris, France A. Maeder, Sauvemy, Switzerland V. Trimble, College Park, MD, and Irvine, CA, USA

Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH

Physics and Astronomy

ONLINE LIBRARY

http://www.springer.de

K. Rohlfs T. L. Wilson

Tools of Radio Astronomy Fourth Revised and Enlarged Edition With 133 Figures and 21 Tables

~ Springer

Professor Dr. K. Rohlfs Universitat Bochum lnstitut fiir Astrophysik 44721 Bochum, Germany

Dr. T. L. Wilson MPI fiir Radioastronomy Auf dem Hiigel 69 53121 Bonn, Germany

Cover picture: The new 110-m Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The design as an off-axis paraboloid was chosen in order to minimize the sidelobes and baseline ripple.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for.

ISSN 0941-7834 ISBN 978-3-662-03268-8 ISBN 978-3-662-03266-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-03266-4 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer-Verlag. Violations are liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York a member of BertelsmannSpringer Science+Business Media GmbH http://www.springer.de © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1986, 1996, 2000, 2004

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 2nd edition 2004 The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Typesetting by the authors Final processing by Frank Herweg, Leutershausen Cover design: design & production GmbH, Heidelberg Printed on acid-free paper

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Preface to the Fourth Edition

Progress in the fields of science and technology is again the reason for updating this text most changes occur in Chaps. 4, 7, 8 and 14; in the others we have made a number of minor improvements. In Chap. 4, Signal Precessing and Receivers, we have shortened the presentation of maser and parametric amplifier front ends, which are no longer commonly used as microwave receivers in radio astronomy. Instead, we have expanded the presentation of cooled transistor and superconducting front ends, and we have added a short section on coherent multi-beam receiver systems. The chapter titled Observational Methods now appears as Chap. 7, and mainly addresses singl