Radio Image of the Moon, Full

Abram J. Rodriguez, William Ames

Temperature of an Object Using Flux Density

We decided to do radio images of the moon and Tau A as our calibration image in order to find the temperature of the moon when it was half full, as well as when the moon was full.

In order to find the temperature of the moon we used a photometry tool in afterglow to find the flux density of it. We found the flux density of the moon to be 4697 units when it was half full and 3991 units when it was full. We followed the same process for our calibration images and around the time the moon was half full, Tau A had a flux density of 4121 units. When the moon was full, tau a had a flux density of 4292.

We got an arbitrary ratio when we compared each value to its respective date. In order to find the Jansky value we had to use Skynet to find the Jansky units at the time they were taken. They were 847 and 847.1 jy respectively with their dates. Using the ratio we found between the two objects before we simply times it by the janskys that the calibration images had to get 960 and 787 janskys respectively for the moon.

Once we had our jansky values, we archived how far the moon was on their respective dates in order to find their temperature, interestingly using the Apple proprietary weather app. We found that the moon was 384000 km and 40400 km respectively on their respective dates. We had some other values that were already given to us and we used Raleigh-Jeans limit to find that the moon was 248 K when it was half full and 227 K when it was full.

We are not sure why we got a lower temperature value for when the moon is full because it is experiencing more direct light. Our data is posted here: Module 1B data