Introduction to Radio Astronomy and Interferometry Paragraph 3 For more information on each of the sentences below, click on the text of the sentence. For more information on all the sentences click here.
Radio astronomy uses radio waves to study regions of space.
Single-dish radio telescopes produce blurry images. Interferometry is a technique used to overcome the blurring and produce sharper radio images. Astronomers are able to electronically simulate the effect of a very large dish by using the combined signal from many smaller single-dish radio telescopes. The technique they use is called interferometry. Interferometry exploits one advantage of the much larger wavelength of radio waves, which is that detectors can be used which measure the phase as well as the intensity of the radio waves received.