Open AccessA baseband recorder for radio pulsar observations
Author(s) -
Stairs I. H.,
Splaver E. M.,
Thorsett S. E.,
Nice D. J.,
Taylor J. H.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2000.03306.x
Subject(s) - physics , pulsar , baseband , radio astronomy , radio frequency , millisecond pulsar , millisecond , signal (programming language) , radio telescope , electromagnetic interference , filter (signal processing) , astronomy , astrophysics , telecommunications , computer science , optoelectronics , cmos , computer vision , programming language
Digital signal recorders are becoming widely used in several subfields of centimetre‐wavelength radio astronomy. We review the benefits and design considerations of such systems and describe the Princeton Mark IV instrument, an implementation designed for coherent‐dedispersion pulsar observations. Features of this instrument include corrections for the distortions caused by coarse quantization of the incoming signal, as well as algorithms that effectively excise both narrow‐band and broad‐band radio frequency interference. Observations at 430 MHz, using the Mark IV system in parallel with a system using a 250‐kHz filter bank and incoherent dedispersion, demonstrated timing precision improvement by a factor of 3 or better for typical millisecond pulsars.