Solar Brightness Temperature

A simple radio astronomy experiment that uses a digital TV satellite dish to measure and calculate the brightness temperature of the Sun. It introduces terminology and concepts that are relevant for single dish radio astronomy.

Table of Contents

• Radio astronomy with a satellite dish (project)
• Tutorial to calculate the temperature of the Sun

Data files for the Solar temperature tutorial are available on the Materials tab

Radio astronomy with a satellite dish project

Easy to follow project with step-by-step instructions on how to use a DSTV dish to measure the Sun’s brightness temperature yourself

• Simplified project sheet aimed at high school level students (Click to view)
• More mathematically technical project sheet aimed at pre-graduate students (Click to view)

Tutorial using solar drift scan data 

• Interactive Colab tutorial calculating the brightness temperature of the Sun using drift scan data for a single dish (Click to open)