Radio Telescope Observations of the April 8, 2024, Total Solar Eclipse at 1420 MHz

We present radio telescope observations of the April 8th, 2024, total solar eclipse from the University of Central Arkansas campus in Conway, Arkansas, using a 2.3-m SPIDER 230C parabolic radio telescope tuned to a frequency of 1420 MHz. Observations began approximately 19 min before first contact and ended approximately 2.5 min after fourth contact, continuously tracking the sun across the sky. Our radio observations show a reduction in relative intensity from the beginning of the lightcurve to the middle of totality of approximately 70%, indicating that the apparent size of the radio solar disk was larger than the apparent size of the moon and therefore only partially covered. This contrasts with optical data, where the eclipse was total. To determine the relative size of the radio solar disk, we compared our observed radio and optical data to theoretical lightcurves of the eclipse with different solar radii. From our analyses, we found that the radio solar disk is approximately R1420 = 1.27R⊙. This is consistent with previously published results.