Physics – Optics
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21942238m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #422.38
Physics
Optics
Scientific paper
Spillover, the fraction of power received by a radio telescope that originates from the ground, contributes to the system temperature (Tsys) and, thus, degrades slightly the performance of the telescope. Some methods of calibrating data from radio telescopes require accurate knowledge of the spillover contribution. Since the amount of power received from the ground changes with elevation, so does the contribution to Tsys. In most cases, there is no way to distinguish empirically between the elevation-dependent contribution to Tsys from spillover and from the Earth's atmosphere. Thus, determining spillover is usually done from theoretical models of the telescope's optics. By using recently-constructed, accurate models of the contribution to Tsys from the Earth's atmosphere, we have derived a method whereby one can determine to an accuracy of less than a percent the elevation dependence of the contribution of spillover to Tsys. The measured spillover can then be compared to the theoretical models. We have applied this technique to the Green Bank Telescope, a challenging telescope since it has an extremely low spillover contribution, and have found that the measured and theoretical spillovers are in disagreement.
Maddalena Ronald J.
Mattox M. E.
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