Radio Telescope Calibration

This lecture covers the calibration process for radio telescopes, focusing on cross-calibration and bandpass calibration. It explains the use of Jones matrices and the Radio Interferometry Measurement Equation (RIME) to correct for atmospheric effects, antenna beam patterns, and receiver gains. The importance of calibrator sources with known properties is highlighted, along with the calibration of absolute flux scale and complex gain variations. The instructor demonstrates the use of CASA software tools for calibration, including setjy for filling model columns, gaincal for temporal gains determination, and plotcal for visualizing calibration results.