Essential Radio Astronomy

Appendix H References and Links

H.1 Reference Books

Bracewell, R. (2000). The Fourier Transform and Its Applications. McGraw-Hill: New York. The classic textbook on Fourier transforms.

Burke, B. F., and Graham-Smith, F. (2002). An Introduction to Radio Astronomy (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. A very readable descriptive introduction to radio astronomy. Most of the equations are only presented, not derived.

Christiansen, W. N., and Högbom, J. A. (1985). Radio Telescopes. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Principles of design for a wide range of radio telescopes.

Draine, B. T. (2011). Physics of the Interstellar and Intergalactic Medium. Princeton University Press: Princeton. Graduate-level textbook on the interstellar and intergalactic medium with an extensive discussion of dust emission and absorption.

Evans, J. V., and Hagfors, T. (eds) (1968). Radar Astronomy. McGraw-Hill: New York. The textbook based on the 1960 MIT summer course on radar astronomy.

Goldsmith, P. F. (ed) (1988). Instrumentation and Techniques for Radio Astronomy. IEEE Press: New York. Reprints of classic radio astronomy papers.

Griffiths, D. J. (2012). Introduction to Electrodynamics (4th ed.). Addison-Wesley. A very accessible introduction to vector calculus and Maxwell’s equations.

Jackson, J. D. (1962). Classical Electrodynamics. Wiley: New York. The standard textbook for electromagnetism, with an appendix explaining systems of units.

Kraus, J. D. (1986). Radio Astronomy. Cygnus-Quasar Books: Powell, OH. Revised edition of the classic but idiosyncratic general textbook, with an emphasis on radio telescope antennas and receivers from an engineer’s viewpoint.

Longair, M. S. (1992). High Energy Astrophysics (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Two-volume textbook containing physically insightful derivations of the Larmor equation and formulas for free–free emission, synchrotron radiation, and inverse-Compton scattering.

Lorimer, D. L., and Kramer, M. (2005). Handbook of Pulsar Astronomy. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Comprehensive review of pulsar observational techniques and results.

Lyne, A. G., and Graham-Smith, F. (1998). Pulsar Astronomy (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. A very readable book covering most of pulsar astronomy.

Osterbrock, D. E. (1989). Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei (2nd ed.). University Science Books: Mill Valley, CA. The classic text covering free–free continuum and hydrogen recombination lines at the advanced graduate level.

Pacholczyk, A. B. (1970). Radio Astrophysics. Freeman: San Francisco. Textbook with mathematically complete derivations of formulas for free–free emission, synchrotron radiation, and inverse-Compton radiation.

Rybicki, G. B., and Lightman, A. P. (1979). Radiative Processes in Astrophysics. Wiley: New York. A very good textbook on radiation fundamentals and astrophysical emission mechanisms.

Stanimirovic, S., Altschuler, D. R., Goldsmith, P. F., and Salter, C. J. (eds) (2002). Single-Dish Radio Astronomy: Techniques and Applications. ASP: San Francisco. Everything you wanted to know about single-dish observing, from the 2001 Arecibo summer school.

Sullivan, W. T. (2009). Cosmic Noise: A History of Early Radio Astronomy. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. The standard history of early radio astronomy.

Taylor, G. B., Carilli, C. L., and Perley, R. A. (eds) (1999). Synthesis Imaging in Radio Astronomy II. ASP: San Francisco. Everything you wanted to know about interferometry, but were afraid to ask, from the 1998 VLA synthesis-imaging summer school.

Thompson, A. R., Moran, J. M., and Swenson, G. W. (2001). Interferometry and Synthesis in Radio Astronomy (2nd ed.). Wiley: New York. The bible of radio interferometry.

Wilson, T. L., Rohlfs, K., and Hüttemeister, S. (2009). Tools of Radio Astronomy (5th ed.). Springer: Berlin. For many years, the only complete radio-astronomy textbook in print; successor to Rohlfs and Wilson, Tools of Radio Astronomy.

H.2 Links

http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/astro-ph. arXiv astronomy and astrophysics preprints, but caveat emptor as they have not all been refereed.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/. The Astrophysical Data System (ADS) searches the astronomy/astrophysics literature by subject, author, etc.

http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/astroWeb/astroweb.html. AstroWeb links to most everything astronomical on the web.

http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/Cats.html. The CDS (Strasbourg astronomical Data Center) collects and distributes astronomical data catalogues, related to observations of stars and galaxies, and other Galactic and extragalactic objects.

http://www.cv.nrao.edu/course/astr534/ERA.shtml. The online radio astronomy course Essential Radio Astronomy.

http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu. The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database. NED is built around a master list of extragalactic objects for which cross-identifications of names have been established, accurate positions and redshifts entered to the extent possible, and some basic data collected. Bibliographic references relevant to individual objects have been compiled, and abstracts of extragalactic interest are kept online. Detailed and referenced photometry, position, and redshift data have been taken from large compilations and from the literature.

http://www.nrao.edu/. The NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) site describing the NRAO telescopes, how to propose for observing time, schedule observations, reduce data, etc.

http://www.cv.nrao.edu/nvss/. The NVSS (NRAO VLA Sky Survey) site provides radio continuum views of the entire sky north of δ=-40, including a catalog of 1.8×106 sources stronger than 2.5 mJy at 1.4 GHz and postage-stamp images with 45′′ resolution.

http://simbad.harvard.edu. SIMBAD (Set of Identifications, Measurements, and Bibliography for Astronomical Data) contains data, cross-identifications, observational measurements, and bibliographies for celestial objects outside the Solar System: stars, galaxies, and nonstellar objects within our galaxy, or in external galaxies.