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Radio
astronomy
Updated August
23, 2006
New for September 2006! Some
of this information about radio telescopes comes from an engineer
at the Natonal Radio Astronomy Observatory. Radio astronomy is yet
another cool use of the microwave frequency spectrum!
Here is a link to a spectacular
collapse of the Greenbank 300 ft telescope (antenna), 1988:
http://www.gb.nrao.edu/fgdocs/300ft/300ft.html
This engineering disaster certainly
ranks up there with the Tacoma
bridge!
Here is a link to radio astronomy
references with many links to other radio astronomy websites:
http://www.101science.com/rastronomy.htm
Every specialty has its own "bible".
In radio astronomy it's "nterferometry and Synthesis in
Radio Astronomy by A. Richard Thompson, James M. Moran, and
George W. Swenson.
The website for the NRAO is www.nrao.edu
and for the new international Atacama (a desert in Chile) Large
Millimeter Array (ALMA) is http://www.alma.nrao.edu.
ALMA will work up to 950 GHz!
Currently the hot topics in
radio astronomy are: "Stellar Nurseries" and "The
Epoch of Re-ionization" (occurred "shortly" after
the big bang). Please don't bother sending complaints to this web
site if you are a "creationist", here's the response you'll
get: just because you believe it, doesn't make it so.
Another interesting thing. All
the planets in the solar system are in the near-field of the Very
Large Array (VLA).
We
need to dispell one myth about radio astronomy. This worthy topic
has really nothing to do with SETI.
Mentioning this organization prominently on the same page as radio
astronomy will probably annoy the astronomers so much that they'll
never return. Occasionally, those-that-shall-not-be-named have scheduled
time to use radio astronomy equipment or sites, like Arecibo. But
for the most part the confusion between radio astronomy and those-that-shall-not-be-named
annoys the heck out of radio astronomers. It's comparable the assumption
that microwave engineers would like to repair their neighbor's broken
ovens, a misconception we battle all the time.
More to come!
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