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Radio astronomy is an active and rapidly expanding field due to advances in computing techniques, with several important new instruments on the horizon. This text provides a thorough introduction to radio astronomy and its contribution to our understanding of the universe, bridging the gap between basic introductions and research-level treatments. It begins by covering the fundamentals physics of radio techniques, before moving on to single-dish telescopes and aperture synthesis arrays. Fully updated and extensively rewritten, the fourth edition places greater emphasis on techniques, with detailed discussion of interferometry in particular, and comprehensive coverage of digital techniques in the appendices. The science sections are fully revised, with new author Peter N. Wilkinson bringing added expertise to the sections on pulsars, quasars and active galaxies. Spanning the entirety of radio astronomy, this is an engaging introduction for students and researchers approaching radio astronomy for the first time.

An Introduction to Radio Astronomy

Preface; Acknowledgements; Part I. The Emission, Propagation, and Detection of Radio Waves: 1. The role of radio observations in astronomy; 2. Emission and general properties of radio waves; 3. Spectral lines; 4. Radio wave propagation; 5. The nature of the received radio signal; 6. Radiometers; 7. Spectrometers and polarimeters; Part II. Radio Telescopes and Aperture Synthesis: 8. Single-aperture radio telescopes; 9. The basics of interferometry; 10. Aperture synthesis; 11. Further interferometric techniques; Part III. The Radio Cosmos: 12. The Sun and the planets; 13. Stars and nebulae; 14. The Milky Way galaxy; 15. Pulsars; 16. Active galaxies; 17. The radio contributions to cosmology; Appendix 1. Fourier transforms; Appendix 2. Celestial coordinates and time; Appendix 3. Digitization; Appendix 4. Calibrating polarimeters; Appendix 5. Spherical harmonics; References; Index.