The Radio Sky II: Observational Radio Astronomy

The first part of the course introduces the different types of telescope technologies available to astronomers, with a particular focus on single-dish radio telescopes and radio interferometers. Optical, UV, X-ray, Gamma, neutrino, and gravitational wave telescopes will also be briefly covered, as well as a foray into Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

We, then, dive deep into the principles of observational radio astronomy, covering the observables (flux, luminosity, brightness temperature), and the instrumentation (the radiometer equation, sensitivity calculations). Next, we describe various radio telescope technologies, as well as time-domain radio astronomy (pulsars, transients, Fast Radio Bursts). Finally, we look at different radio astronomy observatories around the world and compare their capabilities.

The rest of the course is dedicated to radio interferometric imaging. We introduce the Fourier transform and the van Cittert-Zernike theorem, and discuss the principles o