A rooftop radio observatory: An undergraduate telescope system at the University of California at Berkeley

Abstract

We describe the 1- to 2-GHz radio telescope built by undergraduates with faculty guidance at the University of California at Berkeley. The telescope is optimized to observe the 1420-MHz 21-cm emission line of neutral atomic hydrogen and is used in the recently created advanced undergraduate radio astronomy laboratory course, as well as in part of a graduate course on astronomical observation. We discuss the design of the telescope and the structure of the course and also present astronomical observations made with the telescope.