1. Astronomy Picture of the Day – 16 Jul 06
“The center of our Galaxy is a busy place. In visible light, much of the Galactic Center is obscured by opaque dust. In infrared light, however, dust glows more and obscures less, allowing nearly one million stars to be recorded in the above photograph. The Galactic Center itself appears on the right and is located about 30,000 light years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius. The Galactic Plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, the plane in which the Sun orbits, is identifiable by the dark diagonal dust lane. The absorbing dust grains are created in the atmospheres of cool red-giant stars and grow in molecular clouds. The region directly surrounding the Galactic Center glows brightly in radio and high-energy radiation, and is thought to house a large black hole.”
[taken from

2. REU Summer 2006: KSU SRT Project
Ashley K. Wheeler
Mentor: Dr. Tim Bolton

3. Outline Why radio astronomy? How are radio waves emitted?
What is radio astronomy?
Versus optical astronomy?
How are radio waves emitted?
Basic Schematic
Resolution
Summary, pre-REU

4. Outline, cont. REU Software Sweeps/ Waveforms Aliasing Data Comparison
What is it?
Why is it a problem?
Data Comparison
Baselines and Averaging
Possible Sources

5. Outline, cont.
What’s next?
Software
Mounting
For More Information

6. Why radio astronomy? What is radio astronomy?
Versus optical astronomy?
[figure borrowed from

7. How are radio waves emitted?
Black bodies
Ionized gas clouds
Change in energy states and masers
Electron plus magnetic field (non-thermal)
Moving magnetic field (non-thermal)

8. Basic Schematic

9. Resolution q = 1.03l/D = 1.03(c/n)/D
radians, or about 1.5 degrees

10. Summary, pre-REU
Sat finders and tees

11. REU
CNVTWFM
Moved the dish outside
1st sweep – Jun 20th, 2006

12. REU, cont.

13. REU, cont.
Aliasing

14. REU, cont.
Data comparison

15. REU, cont.
Baselines and averaging

16. REU, cont. Manhattan, KS 39.179642 -> dec. of +39o 10’ 46.7112”
Name/ Type RA
Dec.
S 5 GHz (Jy)
4C 39.23/ Quasar
08:24:
0.99
?/ Quasar
10:23:
0.87
NGC 1023/ Galaxy
02:40:48.5
Manhattan, KS > dec. of +39o 10’ ”
RA = (our time of day) + (5 hrs)

17. Next, cont.
Signal processing software
Mounting?

18. For More Information The Astronomical Almanac www.radio.uindy.edu