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3 votes
1 answer
257 views

Has optical interferometry been done at radio frequency using heterodyning with a laser in a nonlinear material?

If one collects narrow band optical emission from a large telescope with frequency $f_1$ and mixes it in a nonlinear crystal with laser light of a nearby frequency $f_2$, it would produce two new ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
3 votes
2 answers
195 views

Would "layered" radio interferometry work?

tl;dr - Is splitting up the process of interferometry as shown in the diagram possible, and if so, is it more efficient and/or easier than traditional methods? I have been doing some research into ...
sforsingh's user avatar
  • 1,443
5 votes
1 answer
166 views

Can weak gravitational lensing or microlensing-induced wavefront distortion limit resolution of absurdly large aperture telescopes?

This is a theoretical question. This answer to the question If we had the right technology could we see a distant star in detail? (presumably space-based) primarily addresses the scaling of ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k
4 votes
3 answers
8k views

Converting Jy/beam to Jy?

Maybe its a dumb question, but to convert Jy/beam to Jy, I just have to multiply it by the beam size in sr right? Being $\Omega$ the beam size: $\Omega = \frac{\pi \theta_{maj} ~~ \theta_{min}}{4 \...
igreen21's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
963 views

In astronomical interferometry, what values do the points in the uv-plane have?

As I understand it, the image of an interferometer is the inverse fourier transform of the information in the uv plane. For each baseline (vector between any two telescopes in the array), representing ...
2080's user avatar
  • 1,800
13 votes
2 answers
258 views

Why hasn't VLBI been used to try and image giant exoplanets?

A Jupiter-sized object at 10 pc subtends an angle of 0.0001 arcseconds (100 micro-arcsec) at the Earth. The Event Horizon Telescope interferometry network is capable of a (demonstrated) angular ...
ProfRob's user avatar
  • 156k
5 votes
0 answers
106 views

Estimate the number of pixels required to map the full primary beam of a Radio Telescope station

I am practising some exam questions for a radio interferometry exam, and I am struggling with this question: The physical size of a single LOFAR station, operating at 150MHz is about 50m. Estimate ...
Naz's user avatar
  • 163
3 votes
1 answer
96 views

What are the challenges for the building and data analysis of the CHIME telescope?

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) has discovered the second repeated fast radio burst recently. However, its structure is simple apparently. I wonder why we did not build a ...
questionhang's user avatar
  • 3,137
3 votes
1 answer
158 views

Could the E.H.T. produce an image of the human artifacts on the moon?

Two days ago the New York Times featured the Event Horizon Telescope (E.H.T.), a huge virtual radio telescope emerging from combining data from several dishes scattered around the world. While the E.H....
Peter - Reinstate Monica's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
384 views

Estimate upper limits on flux values in the case of a non-detection?

I have ALMA data which are non-detections of some spectral lines in a protoplanetary disk. The data is in the form of spectral cubes. I am hoping to estimate an upper limit on the flux of each of the ...
lucas's user avatar
  • 1,386
2 votes
1 answer
183 views

How is VLBI delay calculated?

I’m working on a research project wherein we are trying to solve a problem very similar to VLBI delay. We have two radio receivers, and we know their locations. We also know at what time one receiver ...
PerplexedDimension's user avatar