<title>The Design Of Stable Acousto-Optical Spectrometers For Radio Astronomy</title>

Abstract

A number of acousto-optical spectrometers (AOS) have been constructed for radio astronomy in recent years. Although such spectrometers are simple and relatively cheap, great care is needed in their construction if the stability necessary for radio astronomy is to be achieved. An experimental AOS, with a bandwidth of 100 MHz, has been built at Caltech and used for a study of the various sources of drifts. The results of this study are presented. The experimental AOS can already operate with negligible drift at a chopping rate of 0.02 Hz. Improvements planned for the next version should permit operation at a chopping rate of 0.01 Hz.