Development of a signal measurement system for a radio telescope

Abstract

We developed a measurement system for a radio telescope. The data acquisition is controlled by a personal computer, which facilitates accurate data analysis by the aid of numerical methods. The characteristics of the many pieces of equipment in the system are also measured more precisely in order to determine the important parameters for the estimation of some physical quantities. Observations were made in the rural area of Saraburi province to minimize the effects of the man-made noise. The System is verified to be able to detect small signals from many intensive terrestrial radio sources. However, the long-term measurement suffers from the instability of the system even when the calibration is applied. If the gain instability and the minor lobe of antenna have a small effect, the equivalent blackbody temperature measured from the thermal noise when the Sun appears should be on the order of 1 to 10 million Kelvin, which is comparable to the value of a million Kelvin which is measured by previous radio astronomers in the same wavelength at the time of the quiet Sun.