Resources: Observatories, Archives & University Groups¶
Radio astronomy runs on shared, open infrastructure: a handful of great telescopes, public data archives anyone can query, and free software written by the community that uses it. This page is a curated index of the places and sites a working radio astronomer actually uses — where the data come from, where they live, and where the people are.
It's representative, not exhaustive — the field is too large to list in full, and links drift. For the seminal-paper bibliography and the textbooks the course is built around, see the References page; this page deliberately complements it by pointing at institutions, facilities, and communities rather than repeating the paper list.
All URLs below were verified live in June 2026.
Major radio observatories & facilities¶
This page lists the organisations; for a detailed instrument-by-instrument catalogue (sizes, bands, locations), see Radio Telescopes of the World.
| Facility | What it is | Link |
|---|---|---|
| NRAO (VLA, VLBA) | US national radio observatory (NSF/AUI); operates the Very Large Array and Very Long Baseline Array | public.nrao.edu |
| ALMA | 66-antenna mm/sub-mm array on Chajnantor, Chile; ESO/NSF/NINS partnership | almaobservatory.org |
| Green Bank Observatory (GBT) | Home of the Green Bank Telescope, the largest fully steerable dish, West Virginia | greenbankobservatory.org |
| ngVLA | NRAO's next-generation array, succeeding the VLA in sensitivity and resolution | ngvla.nrao.edu |
| SKAO (SKA) | Intergovernmental observatory building SKA-Mid (South Africa) and SKA-Low (Australia) | skao.int |
| ASTRON / LOFAR | Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy; operates the LOFAR low-frequency array and Westerbork | astron.nl |
| MPIfR / Effelsberg | Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn; operates the 100 m Effelsberg telescope | mpifr-bonn.mpg.de |
| JIVE (EVN/VLBI) | Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC; correlation and support for the European VLBI Network | jive.eu · evlbi.org |
| CSIRO / ATNF | Australia Telescope National Facility — ATCA, Parkes "Murriyang", and ASKAP | atnf.csiro.au |
| SARAO / MeerKAT | South African Radio Astronomy Observatory; operates MeerKAT and leads SA's SKA role | sarao.ac.za |
| NAOJ Nobeyama | National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; home of the Nobeyama 45 m mm-wave telescope | nro.nao.ac.jp |
| FAST | Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, the largest single dish, Guizhou, China | fast.bao.ac.cn |
| Arecibo / NAIC | Legacy site of the 305 m Arecibo dish (collapsed 2020), now the NSF Arecibo C3 education centre | nsf.gov/arecibo |
| IRAM (NOEMA, 30 m) | Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique, Grenoble; operates the 30 m and NOEMA | iram-institute.org |
| APEX | The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment 12 m submm telescope on Chajnantor; ESO / MPIfR / OSO partnership | apex-telescope.org |
| Jodrell Bank / e-MERLIN | University of Manchester; the Lovell Telescope and the UK e-MERLIN array | jodrellbank.manchester.ac.uk |
| GMRT | Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (NCRA-TIFR), near Pune, India | gmrt.ncra.tifr.res.in |
| MIT Haystack | Radio science research center in Westford, Massachusetts (EHT, geodesy, EDGES) | haystack.mit.edu |
Data archives & virtual observatory¶
The References page already links the NRAO Science Data Archive, HEASARC, and astroquery / pyvo. A fuller set of archives and Virtual Observatory entry points:
| Archive | Contents | Link |
|---|---|---|
| NRAO Science Data Archive | VLA, VLBA and related NRAO data (see References); TAP/VO scripted access via pyvo + an embedded CARTA viewer |
data.nrao.edu |
| VLASS (VLA Sky Survey) | The 2–4 GHz survey of the sky north of Dec −40° at 2.5″, three epochs (2017–2024); quick-look images and the CIRADA component catalogue | science.nrao.edu/vlass · CIRADA catalogue |
| ALMA Science Archive | All ALMA observations; the .org query tool routes to a regional mirror |
almascience.org/aq |
| CASDA | CSIRO ASKAP Science Data Archive, with VO services | research.csiro.au/casda |
| MeerKAT / SARAO archive | MeerKAT observational data | archive.sarao.ac.za |
| LOFAR LTA | The LOFAR Long Term Archive search and retrieval interface | lta.lofar.eu |
| HEASARC | NASA multi-mission high-energy archive, software and tools (see References) | heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov |
| CDS (SIMBAD, VizieR) | Strasbourg data centre; object database, catalogue service, Aladin | cds.unistra.fr · SIMBAD · VizieR |
| MAST | STScI archive for Webb, Hubble, TESS, Kepler, Roman and more | archive.stsci.edu |
| IVOA / the VO | International Virtual Observatory Alliance; defines the VO standards | ivoa.net |
| ATNF Pulsar Catalogue | The psrcat catalogue with an interactive query interface |
atnf.csiro.au/.../psrcat |
| LAMBDA | NASA's Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis | lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov |
| NED (NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database) | 2M+ extragalactic objects with cross-IDs across radio surveys (NVSS, FIRST, …), multiwavelength SEDs, and redshifts — the authoritative radio↔optical cross-match (astroquery.ipac.ned) |
ned.ipac.caltech.edu |
| IRSA (NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive) | WISE, 2MASS, Planck, IRAS, … — including Planck polarised synchrotron/free-free foreground maps and IRAS far-IR (astroquery.ipac.irsa) |
irsa.ipac.caltech.edu |
| SkyView (NASA/GSFC) | A "virtual telescope" returning FITS cutouts from dozens of surveys — NVSS, FIRST, TGSS, VLSS, WENSS, GLEAM, Haslam 408 MHz, HI4PI (astroquery.skyview) |
skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov |
| ESASky (ESA) | Browser/Python multiwavelength sky browser — the broadest radio→microwave HiPS set (NVSS, TGSS, WENSS, SUMSS, CHIPASS, Haslam 408 MHz, LoTSS DR2, Planck, WMAP, QUIJOTE), with catalogue overlays (astroquery.esasky, pyESASky) |
sky.esa.int |
| Planck Legacy Archive (ESA) | ESA's complete Planck release: 30–857 GHz sky maps + the COMMANDER foreground maps (synchrotron at 408 MHz ref, free-free EM/T_e, spinning-dust/AME, CO) — the primary home for the data the course meets via LAMBDA/IRSA | pla.esac.esa.int |
| APEX archive (ESO) | The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment submm (~200–1500 GHz) archive, with public surveys incl. ATLASGAL (870 µm Galactic-plane continuum) and ALLSMOG (CO) | archive.eso.org/.../apex |
| Gaia Archive (ESA) | 1.8-billion-source optical catalogue; Gaia-CRF3 ties the optical frame to ICRF radio positions, and ADQL cross-matches radio catalogues to optical/IR counterparts (astroquery.gaia) |
cosmos.esa.int/.../gaia |
Amateur & Radio JOVE / SkyPipe data¶
Where to find Radio-SkyPipe (.spd) and Radio-Sky Spectrograph (.sps) data — the
decametric Jupiter/solar observations from the NASA Radio JOVE project and the amateur community
(the formats themselves are covered in Data Formats):
| Source | Contents | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Radio JOVE Data Archive | The active NASA Radio JOVE archive: ~two decades of observer SkyPipe (.spd) / SPS (.sps) Sun/Jupiter/galaxy data; open search & download (uploading needs a submitter account) |
radiojove.net · archive |
| Radio JOVE Project (NASA GSFC) | The project portal; observing, the SPS/SPD format docs, links to the archive | radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov |
| MASER (Paris Observatory / PADC) | Low-frequency radio archive hosting a Radio JOVE collection (converted to CDF) plus the Nançay Decameter Array, Voyager/Cassini, ExPRES | maser.obspm.fr · Radio JOVE dir |
| VESPA | Virtual European Solar & Planetary Access — query decametric/planetary radio data (incl. the radiojove schema and the NDA) as VOTable |
vespa.obspm.fr |
| UFRO (Univ. of Florida) | UF Dept. of Astronomy, home of the Radio Observatory's Internet Jupiter Radio Observatory (decametric spectrograph data; the dedicated IJRO feed is intermittently offline) | astro.ufl.edu |
| Radio-SkyPipe live servers | Not an archive but the live feed: observers publish strip-charts you can browse in Radio-SkyPipe's client mode | radiosky.com |
Note: the old radiojove.org domain is dead (it now redirects to an unrelated parked site) — use
radiojove.net and radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov instead.
Planetary & spacecraft radio data (NASA PDS · ESA PSA)¶
The raw, calibrated planetary radio and plasma-wave data behind the Jupiter/Saturn results and the lightning/whistler physics the course cites (Chapters 23, 27 & 40) — usually met second-hand through published papers — live at NASA's and ESA's planetary archives:
| Source | Contents | Link |
|---|---|---|
| PDS / PPI node (NASA) | Search & download Cassini RPWS (Saturn radio & lightning), Voyager PRA (Jupiter/Saturn flybys), Juno Waves (Jupiter), and Galileo PWS radio/plasma-wave data — PDS format, plus an EPN-TAP VO interface | pds-ppi.igpp.ucla.edu |
| PSA (ESA Planetary Science Archive) | ESA's planetary archive: Mars Express MARSIS (0.1–5.5 MHz ionospheric/subsurface sounding), Rosetta RPC (cometary plasma waves), and Huygens (Titan lightning search) | psa.esa.int |
| Cluster Science Archive (ESA) | The 4-spacecraft WBD wideband plasma-wave receiver (~0.1–77 kHz) resolves individual whistler waveforms — a spaceborne complement to the ground whistlers of Ch 40 | cosmos.esa.int/web/csa |
Software & tools¶
The References page covers CASA, astropy/astroquery, spectral-cube, radio-beam, PINT, and pyvo. For a much larger, link-verified catalogue of source code — organizations, repositories, and the people who maintain them, cross-referenced to the course chapters — see Radio Astronomy on GitHub. The wider radio toolbox:
| Tool | Use | Link |
|---|---|---|
| CASA | Calibration, imaging and analysis for ALMA and the VLA | casa.nrao.edu |
| WSClean | Fast wide-field interferometric imager (w-stacking CLEAN) | gitlab.com/aroffringa/wsclean |
| AOFlagger | RFI detection and flagging | gitlab.com/aroffringa/aoflagger |
| CARTA | Interactive image/cube visualization for ALMA, VLA and SKA pathfinders | cartavis.org |
| astropy / astroquery | Core Python astronomy library and archive-query package | astropy.org · astroquery |
| VIRGO | Open-source Python package for amateur spectral-line radio astronomy (powers PICTOR) | github.com/0xCoto/VIRGO |
| pyuvdata (RASG) | Read/write & convert interferometer visibilities (MS ↔ UVFITS ↔ UVH5) | radioastronomysoftwaregroup.github.io |
| blimpy / turboSETI | Breakthrough Listen filterbank/GUPPI I/O and the Doppler-drift SETI search | github.com/UCBerkeleySETI/blimpy |
| RASDR | Radio Astronomy SDR (LimeSDR-based); feeds Radio-Sky Spectrograph | github.com/myriadrf/RASDR |
| PRESTO | Pulsar search and analysis toolkit | github.com/scottransom/presto |
| PINT | High-precision pulsar timing (NANOGrav) | github.com/nanograv/PINT |
| DSPSR / PSRCHIVE | Pulsar signal processing and data archiving libraries | dspsr · psrchive |
| Miriad | ATNF interferometry reduction package (notably for ATCA) | atnf.csiro.au/.../miriad |
| AIPS | NRAO's classic interferometry reduction and imaging system | aips.nrao.edu |
| dysh | Python-native single-dish (GBT) spectral-line reduction — position-switched HI/line data; the modern successor to GBTIDL | dysh.readthedocs.io |
| astroquery — NRAO / NVAS | Query the NRAO Science Data Archive (astroquery.nrao) and pull archival VLA images of a source (astroquery.nvas) from Python |
astroquery.nvas |
| JPL Horizons | Solar-system ephemerides & observing geometry — RA/Dec, rise/set, and Jupiter's Io phase / central-meridian longitude for predicting decametric-storm windows; web app + REST API + astroquery.jplhorizons |
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons |
| ESASky / pyESASky | Cone-search HiPS maps, catalogues, and spectra from ESA (Planck, WMAP, LoTSS, NVSS…) in Python (astroquery.esasky) or as a Jupyter widget |
esasky docs |
| astroquery — ESO/ALMA & Gaia | Python access to the ESO/APEX archive (astroquery.eso, TAP/ObsCore), the ALMA Science Archive (astroquery.alma), and the Gaia catalogue (astroquery.gaia) |
astroquery.alma · astroquery.gaia |
University & research groups in radio astronomy¶
A representative international sample of groups, departments, and institutes with strong radio-astronomy programmes — far from a complete list, but a good sense of where the work happens.
| Group | Country | Link |
|---|---|---|
| MIT Haystack Observatory | US | haystack.mit.edu |
| Caltech / OVRO | US | ovro.caltech.edu |
| UC Berkeley — Breakthrough Listen / SETI | US | seti.berkeley.edu |
| Cornell — Department of Astronomy | US | astro.cornell.edu |
| NRAO & University of Virginia | US | science.nrao.edu · astronomy.as.virginia.edu |
| Jodrell Bank Centre, Univ. of Manchester | UK | jodrellbank.manchester.ac.uk |
| Cavendish Radio Astronomy & Cosmology (MRAO), Cambridge | UK | cavendishradiocosmology.com |
| Oxford — Astrophysics | UK | physics.ox.ac.uk/.../astrophysics |
| ASTRON | NL | astron.nl |
| Leiden Observatory | NL | universiteitleiden.nl/.../astronomy |
| Kapteyn Institute, Univ. of Groningen | NL | rug.nl/research/kapteyn |
| MPIfR Bonn | DE | mpifr-bonn.mpg.de |
| ICRAR (Curtin & UWA) | AU | icrar.org |
| Sydney Institute for Astronomy, Univ. of Sydney | AU | sifa.sydney.edu.au |
| NCRA-TIFR | IN | ncra.tifr.res.in |
| Dunlap Institute, Univ. of Toronto | CA | dunlap.utoronto.ca |
| ESO (ALMA partner) | DE / intl. | eso.org |
Learning resources, communities & careers¶
- NRAO Synthesis Imaging Workshop — the biennial graduate-level school on aperture synthesis, calibration and imaging; its past lecture slides and videos are posted free — the most detailed open treatment of imaging and deconvolution anywhere — 2026 SIW · courses
- VLA Exposure / Sensitivity Calculator — a web tool that turns a target RMS into an integration time (or vice versa) for any VLA configuration — the radiometer equation of Chapter 3 made operational (the ALMA equivalent is in Projects) — obs.vla.nrao.edu/ect
- ERIS (European Radio Interferometry School) — a week of lectures and hands-on interferometry tutorials — jive.eu/eris
- CASA Guides — step-by-step CASA reduction tutorials for VLA, ALMA and VLBI — casaguides.nrao.edu
- ALMA Science Primer & teaching materials (ESO) — a free introductory PDF on (sub)mm interferometry, an online sensitivity calculator (the radiometer equation of Ch 3, applied), and the secondary-school "ALMA at School" radio-astronomy manual — ALMA Science Primer
- AAS — American Astronomical Society — aas.org
- IAU — International Astronomical Union — iau.org, including Commission B4 (Radio Astronomy)
- URSI — International Union of Radio Science — ursi.org
- arXiv astro-ph — the open-access preprint server's astrophysics listing — arxiv.org/list/astro-ph/recent
- ADS — NASA Astrophysics Data System, the literature search portal — ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
- NRAO REU / summer students — NSF-funded undergraduate research — science.nrao.edu/.../summerstudents
- NRAO Science Helpdesk — ticketed support for VLA/VLBA/GBT/CASA — help.nrao.edu (ALMA: help.almascience.org)
Amateur radio astronomy & citizen science¶
For the hands-on side of the course — building receivers and contributing real observations — the amateur community is unusually welcoming. (Kits, build write-ups, and grants are catalogued in Projects.)
- SARA — Getting Started & beginner resources — the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers' free on-ramp: a beginner booklet, glossary, maths-support pack, and a curated list of free courses and books — getting-started · resources for beginners
- SARA community & grants — a public Google Group, monthly Zoom observing meet-ups and annual Green Bank / Socorro conferences (meetings), and student/teacher project grants (~$200).
- Open Source Radio Telescopes — a community wiki of open, reproducible amateur builds and tutorials — opensourceradiotelescopes.org
- GAVRT — observe with a real NASA antenna — the NASA/JPL + Lewis Center Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope program lets students remotely operate a 34 m Deep Space Network dish on guided campaigns (Jupiter Quest, Black Hole Patrol, Solar Patrol); free after a short online training (details in Projects) — gavrt.lewiscenter.org · JPL project
- NASA Radio JOVE education — lesson plans, classroom activities, and the self-paced SunRISE citizen-science training modules (solar radio, telescope operation, burst analysis) — radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/education
- DSN Now — a live dashboard of NASA's Deep Space Network: which 34 m / 70 m dishes are talking to which spacecraft right now, with data rates and round-trip light times — concrete link-budget and aperture examples for Chapters 3–4 — eyes.nasa.gov/apps/dsn-now
- Contribute & compare your data — live citizen-science networks: the Stanford SuperSID and AAVSO SID solar-flare/ionosphere networks, the American Meteor Society for meteor counts, and the Radio JOVE archive for Jupiter/solar recordings (see the Amateur & Radio JOVE / SkyPipe data table above).
- ESA Solar Radio Burst Tracker — a Zooniverse citizen-science project where you annotate Type III solar radio bursts in real Solar Orbiter / RPW dynamic spectra (the same burst morphology as Chapter 23) to build the first Solar Orbiter burst catalogue — esa.int (project page)
Free introductory courses & tutorials¶
A few classic, freely-available tutorials. Some have moved or gone offline; the links below are
the current live homes with archive.org fallbacks, recovered June 2026 — see
docs/data/archived_links.yml for full provenance (original, live, and Wayback URLs).
- JPL — Basics of Radio Astronomy (Diane Fisher Miller, JPL D-13835) — the classic 109-page Goldstone-Apple Valley workbook; a gentle, thorough first introduction. The JPL host was retired, so the complete public-domain PDF is archived in this repo (recovered from the Wayback Machine); it is also catalogued on ComPADRE and hosted chapter-by-chapter on NASA Radio JOVE.
- Köppen — Spectroscopy with the 21 cm Hydrogen Line — a hands-on ESA-Haystack HI observing and analysis tutorial; relocated from Strasbourg to its current home at the University of Kiel.
- NJIT PHYS 728 — Radio Astronomy (Dale E. Gary) — a graduate course with lecture notes and problem sets; no longer online, preserved on the Wayback Machine.
Key journals¶
| Journal | Link |
|---|---|
| ApJ — The Astrophysical Journal | iopscience.iop.org |
| AJ — The Astronomical Journal | iopscience.iop.org |
| A&A — Astronomy & Astrophysics | aanda.org |
| MNRAS — Monthly Notices of the RAS | academic.oup.com/mnras |
| PASA — Publications of the Astron. Soc. of Australia | cambridge.org/.../pasa |
| PASP — Publications of the Astron. Soc. of the Pacific | iopscience.iop.org |
| RAS journals (MNRAS, GJI, RASTI) | ras.ac.uk/journals |
| Nature | nature.com |
| Science | science.org |
| Radio Astronomy — the SARA journal (amateur / citizen science, since 1981) | radio-astronomy.org/publications |
Radio astronomy is an unusually open and collaborative field: most of the great telescopes are public facilities, the archives are free to query, and the core software is open source. If a link here has moved, search for the institution by name — and for the landmark papers and textbooks behind the course, head to References.