Essential Radio Astronomy

"Essential Radio Astronomy is an excellent introduction to the fundamentals of radio astronomy for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students. It is a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to radio astronomical hardware, physical processes, and cosmic sources of radio radiation and belongs in the bookcase of every budding radio astronomer. It can also serve as a basic reference for any astronomer, no matter what their specialty is."--Leo Blitz, University of California, Berkeley"This book provides advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and astronomers with an invaluable introduction to the key ideas in radio astronomy. Written by two highly respected astronomers, Essential Radio Astronomy explains the underlying physics, the properties of astronomical sources ranging from active galactic nuclei to the cosmic microwave background, as well as how radio telescopes observe the sky."--David N. Spergel, Princeton University"Fantastic. I have been teaching radio astronomy at Harvard for more than forty years, and this is the book I wish I had had to teach from--and the book I wish I had written myself. It is destined to become the essential resource for all aspiring radio astronomers and for anyone who uses radio astronomical data."--James M. Moran, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics"This book, honed over many years in the classroom, fills a clear need for a single volume covering the physical and mathematical foundations of radio astronomy. It is greatly to be welcomed and will surely find its place on the shelves of most professional radio astronomers and students of the discipline."--Peter Wilkinson, University of Manchester