A New Type of Pencil Beam Aerial for Radio Astronomy

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Abstract
Aerials of large aperture giving narrow pencil beams are difficult to realize at low frequencies. In the present paper a new method of synthesizing a large aperture is described. This system, known as the Moving-T aerial, employs a long narrow aperture and a small moving aerial. When phase-switch records obtained at a number of different spacings are combined, the same result is obtained as would have been given by a very large conventional pencil beam instrument. The equivalent aperture is bounded in one direction by half the length of the long aperture, and in the other by the greatest spacing used. The method is considered in some detail, and the limitations are discussed. A pioneer realization is described, which has provided a map of about half the sky at 38 Mc/s with a 2°.2 beam. The results will be given in a subsequent paper.

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