An Inexpensive, Table-top Set-up For Labs On Aperture Synthesis

Details An Inexpensive, Table-top Set-up For Labs On Aperture Synthesis An Inexpensive, Table-top Set-up For Labs On Aperture Synthesis

Jan 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21734610m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #346.10; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Atlhough the radio astronomical technique of aperture synthesis (using an array of interferometers) has been involved in significant contributions to the study of the Universe, it is almost always excluded from an undergraduate curriculum in physics and astronomy because of the complexity of the math involved. As a result astronomy students generally do not understand how instruments like the VLA actually work.
We present here an inexpensive (<$500) table-top set-up which can be used to provide students with hands-on experience in the fundamentals of aperture synthesis. We have developed a set of labs which students can easily perform to obtain an intuitive sense of how combining the signals from an array of antennas reveals information about the structure of the radio source and how high-resolution radio maps can be obtained from this process. Although a thorough mathematical explanation of the process is helpful for advanced students, these labs can be completed without the mathematical lectures and still impart a general conceptual understanding to the lower level students.
This work was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation.

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