An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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In single dish radio astronomy, any technique which forms the difference of signals received from two (or more) pointings on the sky without physically moving the main reflector of the antenna. By rapidly forming differences between sky positions that do and do not contain astronomical sources, beam switching can minimize the corruption of spectral baselines by non-idealities in the instrumental frequency response, or of continuum observations by atmospheric fluctuations.

→ beam; → switching.