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Welcome. jansky is a hands-on radio-astronomy course — 39 chapters plus a six-part Maths Lab — and you do not have to read it all, or in order. This page helps you pick a path that fits your goal and your hardware. (Spoiler: a laptop is all you need.)

1. Set up (10 minutes)

Install the environment once — local with uv or via containers — following the Setup page. Then open Chapter 1 and you're going.

Everything runs fully offline: chapters that touch a telescope archive or real hardware fall back to bundled or simulated data, so nothing stalls without a network connection.

2. Choose your track

Pick the row that sounds most like you. Each links to an ordered chapter list on the Learning Paths page (which also has the full course map).

If you want to… Start with Track
Learn the fundamentals first (recommended) Chapters 1 → 2 → 3 Foundations, then branch anywhere
Do everything on a laptop, no hardware The laptop-only route 🛋️ Laptop-only
Use an RTL-SDR you already own Chapters 1–6, then the projects 📡 RTL-SDR
Understand interferometers & imaging Chapter 7 onward 🛰️ Interferometry
Chase pulsars, FRBs & the nanohertz sky Chapters 13, 18, 20 ⏱️ Transients
Just do the physics & maths Chapters 1–3 + the Maths Lab 🔭 Physics & maths
See pictures before prose The Visual Tour Visual Tour

Not sure? Take the Foundations track (Chapters 1–3). Almost everything else branches off it, and you'll know within an hour whether radio astronomy is your thing (it is).

3. How to work through a chapter

Each chapter is an executable notebook with the same rhythm:

  1. Read the orientation and the physics (equations included, motivated not just stated).
  2. Run the code cells top-to-bottom — change numbers and re-run; that's the point.
  3. Try it yourself — every chapter ends with exercises. Attempt them before peeking at the collapsible Solution blocks.
  4. Recap, then follow the cross-links to where the ideas go next.

The Maths Lab appendices (A–F) are the worked maths behind the chapters — dip into one whenever a derivation feels too fast.

4. Where to get unstuck

Radio astronomy is one of the friendliest corners of astrophysics for a programmer: the data are signals, the maths is Fourier transforms, and the tools are open source. Welcome aboard. 📡