[NRAO] 7th NRAO Synthesis Imaging Summer School - June 2000 Prev
Error Recognition - S.T. Myers Page 3
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  3 What is the Far Field?  
 
 
  • Primary Beam Resolution = / D

  • Adjacent Beams cross at H = D /

  • H = D / = D2 /

  • Above H wavefront fluctuations induced are common to antennas

  • Interferometer "images" objects further than far-field distance H

  • Structures lower than H are in "near field" and not common to antennas

  • Near field distortions of wavefront may be "self-calibratable" if they separate into antenna-based gain errors

 
 
  Next Page: The Near and Far Field