Watch on YouTube¶
A curated, hand-verified library of channels and videos that pair with the course. Every video below was confirmed live via YouTube's oEmbed endpoint, every channel URL was confirmed to resolve, and each topic group is cross-referenced to the chapter (and other pages) it supports. Titles are quoted as YouTube returns them.
Two ways in
Prefer a short, hand-picked set embedded as thumbnails? See the Visual Tour. This page is the fuller library, organised by topic and channel.
Channels worth subscribing to¶
| Channel | Who / what | Best for | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| NRAO | The US national radio observatory (VLA, ngVLA) | Interferometry, the VLA, facility science, historic Jansky lectures | @TheNRAO |
| ESO | Europe's flagship ground-based observatory | ALMA, the radio/mm sky, black-hole context | @ESOobservatory |
| Jodrell Bank | University of Manchester's radio observatory | Pulsars, dish radio astronomy, history, public talks | @JodrellBankObservatory |
| SETI Institute | The institute behind radio SETI | SETI, the Wow! signal, technosignatures | @SETIInstitute |
| NASA Goddard | NASA's astrophysics flight center | Mission science, the multi-wavelength sky | @NASAGoddard |
| PBS Space Time | Matt O'Dowd's astrophysics explainer | Black holes, EHT, pulsars/FRBs, deep physics | @pbsspacetime |
| Veritasium | Derek Muller's science channel | VLBI / how the black-hole image was made | @veritasium |
| Fraser Cain (Universe Today) | Veteran space journalist | Radio-astronomy news, pulsars, SETI, facilities | @frasercain |
| Dr. Becky | Becky Smethurst, Oxford astrophysicist | Black holes, EHT imaging, AGN science | @DrBecky |
| Anton Petrov | Daily astronomy-news explainer | FRBs, pulsars, mysterious radio signals | @whatdamath |
| Cool Worlds | David Kipping, Columbia astronomer | SETI / technosignatures, detection methods | @coolworldslab |
| Sixty Symbols | Brady Haran + Nottingham physicists | Physics of light/emission, telescopes | @sixtysymbols |
| Deep Sky Videos | Brady Haran + astronomers | Objects, observatories, astronomy concepts | @DeepSkyVideos |
| Fermilab | Don Lincoln, particle physicist | Synchrotron radiation, EM fundamentals | @fermilab |
| Sabine Hossenfelder | Physicist, "Science without the gobbledygook" | Critical physics explainers, black holes | @SabineHossenfelder |
| saveitforparts | DIY/amateur radio + satellite tinkering | DIY SDR builds, dish/antenna hacking | @saveitforparts |
Videos by topic¶
History & foundations¶
Pairs with Chapter 1 · What is Radio Astronomy? and the References.
- NRAO Jansky Lecture 1975: Dr. Grote Reber, Beginning of Radio Astronomy — NRAO — The founder of dish radio astronomy tells the origin story in his own words.
- John Kraus: "Grote Reber, Founder of Radio Astronomy" — Canadian Radio Astronomy History — A pioneering radio astronomer recounts Reber's backyard work.
- What is Radio Astronomy? — Dunlap Institute — A concise primer on what radio astronomy is and why we do it.
- Beyond the Visible — NSF/NRAO — Jodie Foster narrates the story of the Very Large Array and the radio sky.
- Jodrell Bank: the telescope that watched the Space Race — Space Mog — The history of the iconic Lovell Telescope and early radio astronomy.
Radio emission & the physics¶
Pairs with Chapter 2 · The Physics of Radio Emission and Chapter 6 · Detecting the Hydrogen Line; symbols in Reading the Notation.
- The Hydrogen 21-cm line — Astronomy Cast — Why neutral hydrogen glows at 21 cm and what it tells us.
- Basics of the 21 cm Hyperfine transition — Aaron Parsons — The quantum spin-flip transition behind the hydrogen line, explained.
- Intro2Astro: the 21 cm line — Introduction to Astronomy Research — How the 21 cm line maps galactic hydrogen.
- The 21 cm hydrogen line in the sky — safusu — A visual look at observing the hydrogen line across the sky.
Antennas, receivers & SDR (build it yourself)¶
Pairs with Chapter 4 · Antennas & Receivers, Chapter 5 · Hands-on SDR, Chapter 6 · Hydrogen Line, and the Projects, Kits & Hacks / Field Notes pages.
- Observing the 21 cm Hydrogen Line from the Milky Way with a DIY Radio Telescope — Lionel — A complete home build detecting galactic hydrogen with an SDR.
- Using Software Defined Radio As A Radio Telescope — Tech Minds — Receiving the 1.42 GHz hydrogen line with an SDR and a mesh antenna.
- Hydrogen Line Radio Telescope Part 1 — The Basic Hardware Setup — Jason Burnfield's Science at Home — Corner-cube reflector and feed/LNA setup for a 21 cm telescope.
- How to build a simple radio telescope (under $15) — Physics Peer — A budget dish-plus-coax build for first signals.
Interferometry & imaging¶
Pairs with Chapter 7 · Why Interferometry?, Chapter 8 · Aperture Synthesis, Chapter 9 · CLEAN, and the Radio Telescopes catalogue.
- How to take a picture of a black hole | Katie Bouman — TED — The imaging algorithms behind the EHT picture.
- How did they actually take this picture? (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) — Veritasium — How VLBI synthesises an Earth-sized telescope to image Sgr A*.
- Aperture Synthesis with VLA and ALMA Radio Telescope Arrays — Wolfram Demonstrations Project — A visual demo of how arrays synthesise a large aperture.
- Introduction to Radio Telescopes — SARAO — How single dishes and arrays collect and combine radio signals.
Pulsars, FRBs & transients¶
Pairs with Chapter 13 · Pulsars.
- The Discovery of Pulsars: A Graduate Student's Tale — Northern Virginia Astronomy Club — Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell on discovering the first pulsar.
- Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell explains what pulsars are — University of Oxford, Dept. of Physics — The discoverer explains what pulsars actually are.
- Pulsar Starquakes Make Fast Radio Bursts? — PBS Space Time — A leading hypothesis for what powers fast radio bursts.
- What are Fast Radio Bursts? — The Royal Society — An accessible overview of the FRB mystery.
- What is a Fast Radio Burst? — Dunlap Institute — A short explainer on FRB detection and origins.
Black holes & the Event Horizon Telescope¶
Pairs with Chapter 8 · Aperture Synthesis (VLBI) and the EHT entry in Radio Telescopes.
- First Image of a Black Hole! — Veritasium — The story of the M87* image and how the EHT made it.
- The Real Science of the EHT Black Hole — PBS Space Time — The physics behind the black-hole shadow and ring.
- Is the famous black hole image "wrong"? — Dr. Becky — A critical look at reconstruction debates over the EHT image.
- M87's black hole shows a polarity flip — ESO explains — VideoFromSpace — Polarised EHT imaging and the magnetic fields around M87*.
Big telescopes & facility tours¶
Pairs with the Radio Telescopes catalogue and Resources.
- The Birth of ALMA Observatory (documentary) — Deep Space TV — Building the ALMA array high in the Atacama.
- MeerKAT: South Africa's Astronomy Powerhouse — DSI South Africa — The MeerKAT array, an SKA precursor.
- Close-up of SKA-mid dishes in South Africa — SKA Observatory — The SKA-mid dishes joining MeerKAT.
- A documentary on China's FAST Telescope — Presseportal Videos — Inside FAST, the 500 m single-dish telescope.
- Seeing the Unseen: the Story of the Green Bank Telescope — NSF — The world's largest fully steerable dish.
SETI & the search¶
Pairs with the SETI projects in Projects, Kits & Hacks and the Allen Telescope Array in Radio Telescopes.
- The Wow! Signal — Mystery Solved? — SETI Institute — SETI astronomers reassess the famous 1977 Wow! signal.
- The Wow! Signal, with discoverer Dr. Jerry Ehman — Event Horizon — The man who wrote "Wow!" on the printout tells the story.
- Breakthrough Listen's SETI search at MeerKAT — Berkeley SETI — Searching for technosignatures with the MeerKAT array.
- Jill Tarter: Time to Stop SETI? — Dr Brian Keating — The SETI pioneer on the state and future of the search.
Feature documentaries — PBS NOVA¶
Pairs with Chapter 8 · Aperture Synthesis (VLBI) and the EHT entry in Radio Telescopes. NOVA's YouTube catalogue leans toward black holes and the Event Horizon Telescope — itself a planet-spanning array of radio observatories.
- Black Holes: The Universe's Mind-Blowing Mystery | NOVA | PBS — PBS NOVA — How the Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-spanning network of radio observatories, imaged the M87 and Sgr A* black holes.
- Black Hole Apocalypse: What's Inside a Black Hole? | Full Documentary | NOVA | PBS — PBS NOVA — Janna Levin's two-hour journey through black-hole science, including the EHT radio-interferometry effort.
- Decoding the Universe: Cosmos | Full Documentary | NOVA | PBS — PBS NOVA — 50 years of cosmic discovery, from Voyager to dark energy to the EHT black-hole image.
Have a great channel or video to add? Open an issue on the repository. For written resources, see the References; for the amateur community and more video pointers, see Field Notes.