Pulsar Scintillation: How An Astronomer Learned to Love Clouds

Talk Abstract

A perk of radio astronomy is being able to observe in most weather conditions -- day or night, rain or shine. The long wavelength light passes through clouds easily. However, radio light still scatters off the gas of much larger clouds found between stars, what is known as the interstellar medium. Just like stars twinkle but planets don't, in the radio sky we see pulsars twinkle and galaxies don't because of the interference of scattered light in the interstellar medium. I will talk about my work observing radio pulsars and how to use their twinkling to measure interstellar clouds.