Resources For Beginners (And Not-So-Beginners) In No Particular Order

(My Comments in Parentheses) – Jon Wallace

The following list is a ‘work-in-progress’. These are recommendations from members of SARA. I hope these resources will help you with your projects and education. If you have additional resources or topic ideas, please feel free to e-mail me through the SARA Education Coordinator contact page (under Contacts on the SARA website).

Basic (and Not So Basic) Radio Astronomy Sites

From Steve Tzikas:

• Did anyone mention the SARA Sections Introduction page which has a beginner's section: http://www.radio-astronomy.org/node/248

From Wolfgang Hermann:

I have been trying to collect a list of online resources which provide the basics of radio astronomy for amateurs and maybe some more details stuff for the advanced amateur.

In my view there is not really a good resource to serve this purpose. I found a couple of tutorials but none of them was really convincing. The first two links below may come closest (they are based on the same material). Some of the other links may even deter people from dealing with the subject :-(

•  https://science.nrao.edu/opportunities/courses/era - (Essential Radio Astronomy course – good)

• http://astronomyonline.org/Science/RadioAstronomy.asp - (Basics of Radio Astronomy for the Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope another really good course – also available at (https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/radioastronomy/radioastronomy_all.pdf)).

• http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/conferences/2015/radio-school/Radio_Astronomy_Fundamentals_-_John_Reynolds.pdf - (presentation on radio astronomy – a bit more advanced than the beginner ones above.)
• https://science.nrao.edu/BasicsofRASocorroSynthesisWorkshoptalkfinmod5.pdf - (another presentation - slightly different slant to it.)
• https://web.njit.edu/~gary/728/ - (physics course on radio astronomy – good with problem sets.)
• http://astro.u-strasbg.fr/~koppen/Haystack/ -  “Radio Astronomy with the 21 cm Hydrogen Line at the International Space University” – (lots of short pages on a variety of topics.)
• http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/radio-school/2011/talks/Parkes-school-Fundamental-II.pdf - (presentation - mostly antenna information.)
• http://www1.phys.vt.edu/~jhs/phys3154/Radio%20Astronomy%20Fun%201.pdf – (mostly hand-written document – mostly on brightness temperature.)
• https://www.utu.fi/en/units/finca/research/Tuorla2015/programme/PublishingImages/Pages/home/harju_lec_0510.pdf - (site shows some recent work and give some RA information.)
• https://pos.sissa.it/065/ - (Proceedings of Science articles in pdf.)
• http://egg.astro.cornell.edu/alfalfa/ugradteam/uat16talks/uat16_introRadAstro.pdf - (another presentation given at Greenbank in 2016)
• http://101science.com/rastronomy.htm - (a list of links to other RA sites.)
• http://events.asiaa.sinica.edu.tw/school/20080818/talk/RadioFundamental.pdf - (Taiwan scientists - radio astronomy presentation – math, including calculus.)
• http://www.yorku.ca/bartel/4330/w17/script2.pdf - (More advanced - mainly discussing antenna theory and practice.)
• https://www.skatelescope.org/radio-astronomy/ - (Square Kilometer Array site – pretty basic information.)

Radio Astronomy Help Resources

• SARA Listserve - http://groups.google.com/group/sara-list - join at this site to participate. Lots of members will give great advice (I know, I have gotten a lot of help there!!!)

From Sue Ann Heatherly (Greenbank):

Last spring we started a website/wiki/forum mailing list called open source radio telescopes here:

• https://opensourceradiotelescopes.org/ - (just started by Greenbank (and others), but has a lot to offer.)

It's a beginning. The listserve receives the most traffic, and can get technical-- but we are hoping to evolve this site into something beginners will find useful.

From Dave Typinski:

• http://www.typnet.net/AJ4CO/Publications/Publications.htm – (some nice presentations and PDFs from Dave Typinski.)
• http://www.typnet.net/AJ4CO/Calculators/Calculators.htm – (useful radio astronomy calculators from Dave Typinski.)

From Dr. Eng. Victor Herrero-Arrieta Ph.D. M.S. Ing.Ind.:

• Wikipedia articles - can be downloaded in pdf format for offline study – (type in the subject you are interested in.)
• The solar and planetary radio astronomy literature is vast, many papers are published every year, you may search for them at: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html
   

Downloadable Books

From Dave Typinski:

• https://archive.org/details/RadioExplorationOfThePlanetarySystem – (downloadable book (1964).)
• https://archive.org/details/RadioExplorationOfTheSun - (downloadable book (1967).)
• https://archive.org/details/RadioAstronomy_218 - (downloadable book (1966).)
   

SDR Radio Project Sites

From Google Search:

• http://parac.eu/projects.htm - (lots of inexpensive and interesting projects for all levels – one of my favorite sites.)

From Marcus Leech:

• http://www.sbrac.org/files/budget_radio_telescope.pdf - (his set-up and experiences – good info.)

From J-J. Maintoux – F1EHN

I did a short video showing our Galaxy measurement on 21 cm:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGwkZY4E64k – (great video on detecting and calculating Milky Way galaxy features with the hydrogen line.)
• http://f1ehn.pagesperso-orange.fr/pages_radioastro/Images_Docs/Radioastro_21cm_2012b.pdf - (Great PDF file going through everything J-J. Maintoux did to find the rotation of the galaxy and galactic arm postions.)

From Bill and Melinda Lord:

• "Low Cost Hydrogen Line Radio Telescope for £160 using the RTL SDR." By Peter East 38 – in the July/August 2013 SARA Journal

From Wolfgang Hermann:

• http://astro.u-strasbg.fr/~koppen/Haystack/ -  “Radio Astronomy with the 21 cm Hydrogen Line at the International Space University” – (lots of short pages on a variety of topics.)

Radio JOVE Resources

From Dave Typinski:

• https://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/ref_shelf.htm - (nice set of background references for JOVE work and beyond.)
• https://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/pubs.htm - (publications, reports and presentations of JOVE research.)
• https://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/newsletters/toc.htm – (back issues of the Radio JOVE bulletin.)
• http://www.radiojove.org/SUG/ - (the Radio JOVE spectrograph users group.)

Revisiting the Itty Bitty Telescope (IBT)

• http://kt4xn.org/Low%20Cost%20IBT%20Update.pdf – (since the loss of the Channel Master a revision was needed and here it is.)

Crystal radio project: 3/24/17

• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sara-list/ptlqbkSC6Rw - (a crystal radio project from Michiel Klaassen.)
• http://www.techlib.com/electronics/crystal.html - (a simple crystal radio and 1 transistor amplifier.)

Chip Sufitchi’s Meteor Radio Project

• http://www.livemeteors.com/Detecting%20meteor%20radio%20echoes%20using%20the%20RTL-SDR.pdf – (good article from Chip about meteor radio detection with a SDR radio (check out his site as well – www.livemeteors.com).)

Projects on a Variety of RA Topics

From Bill and Melinda Lord:

• http://www.britastro.org/radio/projects/otherproj.html - the British Astronomical Association – (Radio Astronomy Group’s downloadable papers on various radio projects – good resource.)
• Stephen Tzikas and Chip Sufitchi have also added Radio Astronomy Sections on the web page Galactic and Cosmology Section | Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers

From Dave Typinski:

• http://www.typnet.net/AJ4CO/Publications/Publications.htm – (some nice presentations and PDFs from Dave Typinski.)
• http://www.typnet.net/AJ4CO/Calculators/Calculators.htm – (useful radio astronomy calculators from Dave Typinski.)

Interferometry

• https://www.cv.nrao.edu/course/astr534/Interferometers1.html – (great site to learn how interferometers work from Marcus Leech.)

Radio Astronomy History

• http://www.dd1us.de/spacesounds%201.html – (sounds from famous and historical space objects from Kurt (via list-serve))
• http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/ - (space history, radio and sounds from Kurt (via list-serve))