Arcetri Technical Reports 1/1997

Diagnostics of the Medicina Radio Telescope:
Measurement Procedure and Data Processing

G. Comoretto, G. Di Filippo, G.  Tofani

Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri

Abstract

In this paper we describe the data measurement and processing procedure adopted in order to reconstruct the surface profile of the Medicina radio telescope. based on a mathematical description of the measurement procedure, We have collected several maps of the antenna far field square amplitude in different feeding conditions. These measures have been filtered and interpolated on a regular grid. We have then used a phase retrieval algorithm to reconstruct the phase of the aperture field distribution. At the end of the process, this procedure gives a complete information on distribution of the antenna surface deformations.

The data have been collected at the beginning of February 1996.