radio telescopen.
/ˌreɪdɪəʊ ˈtɛlᵻskəʊp/, U.S. /ˌreɪdioʊ ˈtɛləˌskoʊp/ 1. Radio. A device that amplifies signals from a distant radio station. rare and disused.
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1924 Washington Post 16 Mar. i. 18/5 The radio frequency amplification makes the receiver more sensitive; that is, it brings in the distant stations. It is the radio telescope that reduces distance.
1930 A. N. Goldsmith & A. C. Lescarboura This Thing called Broadcasting xi. 183 It is a sort of ‘radio telescope’ aimed at the distant transmitting station, receiving its signals, and largely excluding interfering signals.
2.
a. A device (esp. a hypothetical or fictional one) that makes use of radio in some way to imitate or enhance the function of a telescope. rare and disused.
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the world > the universe > cosmology > science of observation > astronomical instruments > for detecting or recording radio waves > [noun]
radio telescope1927
1927 Winnipeg Free Press 19 Mar. (Boys and Girls section) 4/1 If we saw all the things that are in our atmosphere, like a walking human telescope, or like some kind of radio-telescope might do, we should not be able to live our lives on this planet.
1929 Amazing Stories June 202/1 Well, what do you think of it?.. How do you like my radio-telescope?
1943 Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, Texas) 2 June 4/5 There has come into existence an important device [sc. radar] that outrivals any other so far designed, to let man ‘see’ and measure where seeing and measuring was impossible before. In a sense, a radio telescope.
b. Astronomy. An apparatus or installation for detecting and recording radio waves from space with great sensitivity and a high degree of resolution, consisting essentially of a large directional aerial together with a receiver and recording equipment.The first radio telescope built as such is usually regarded as that made by Grote Reber in 1937 in Wheaton, Illinois, although Karl Jansky had detected radio waves from space in 1933 with an aerial he had constructed.
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the world > physical sensation > sight and vision > optical instruments > instrument for distant vision > [noun] > telescope > radio telescopes
radio telescope1947
radioheliograph1960
1947 Ironwood (Mich.) Daily Globe 6 Sept. 3/7 The radio telescope..will catch and unscramble the natural radio waves which come from the stars.
1957 New Scientist 24 Oct. 11 An interferometric radio telescope consists of two separate aerials each joined to the same receiver.
1969 Times 25 Mar. 12/6 The experiment was carried out with the giant radio telescope carved out of a natural bowl in the hills of Puerto Rico.
1976 L. Deighton Twinkle, twinkle, Little Spy xxiii. 229 Two huge radio telescopes, the dishes about sixty feet across.
1990 Astronomy Mar. 25/1 Scientists using..radio telescopes have made the best-yet radar images of Venus from Earth.
1999 T. Pratchett et al. Sci. of Discworld xiv. 110 Those radio waves can be detected using parabolic dish receivers..rather misleadingly called ‘radio telescopes’, even though they work on very different principles from normal optical telescopes.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1924