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I have tested them and hydrogen peak can be seen when aerial pointed at Milky Way. More details on my website www.astronomy.me.uk of my tests of this aerial and others. Andy

Silly me! Of course these are 1.4GHz grid aerials NOT 1.6GHz! They work OK and provide off the shelf solution at about £150 per aerial. Andy

I would like to wax lyrical about one piece of kit I acquired last year, a Sol'Ex spectrohelioscope - this 3D-printed spectrometer uses very high resolution grating to produce 2D "photo" of the sun as it scans the solar disc, as ridiculously low angstroms (0.2-0.4A are theoretically possible). Recently, an international group of us have commissioned one of our group in Vietnam to produce the housing in gorgeous machined, power-coated aluminium - and it is a beutiful piece of kit. Shelyak sell optics for the project. It was conceived by Christan Buil in France and designed to be something you 3D-printed at home and then made yourself - but he gives the contact details of an experienced 3D-printing company who will print the pieces for anyone (like me) who don't have a 3D printer and then you buy optics especially put together for this project from Shelyak and you end up with a high resolution spectrometer than is only a fraction of price of LHIRES and other similar devices. Also, it can easily be converted to a high resolution star spectrometer - called now Star'Ex! If you want to find out more look at Sol'Ex: Presentation-en (astrosurf.com) My own experiences can be seen at www.astronomy.me.uk I don't have any personal involvement in development of project nor make any money from it! Got to emphasise that in case anyone thinks I am trying to sell something. I also have limited understanding of a lot of the physics - but I can see the results and it blows my mind! Now, all I need are some clear skies to take images of the sun. I should have mentioned Sol'Ex allows you to choose ANY wavelength you want - so you can have images of sun in hydrogen alpha, hydrogen beta, calcium H/K, magnesium, helium, iron, and I gues if you want it anything else you can look up wavelength of the solar spectral lines for.......... Andy

Now that I have had this Astro Truk for a while, I can say I am as happy with it as first day I got it - well built and the inflated wheels make it easy to pull along. Answering one question above, yes, the locks next to wheels will go down and help level the Truk. I haven't seemed to need them. The idea of marking the position after polar aligning is a great one - personally I know roughly where north is in my garden and my QHY Polemaster does the rest quickly and easily. Now if Astro Truk can add a cloud clearance option then that would improve the experience!! Andy

Sadly not - I am beginning to wonder whether I am suffering from too much radio interference locally or alternatively just sheer incompetence!!! Andy

Alex is a particularly talented amateur radio astronomer - he has sent me one of his latest creations - a 21cm plate Yagi aerial (see my website www.astronomy.me.uk) for photos and further info. I have started process of mapping Milky Way using this aerial as alternative to my Pharmigan ex-military dipole array. Results of first 2 days at 77 degrees elevation from Lichfield (just north of Birmingham, UK) - see attached graph. Some excellent peaks as drift scan crosses Milky Way! Anyone interested in finding out more about how to map the Milky Way themselves should come along to my talk at the International Astronomy Show this year. Andy

Wow! Last week purchased Stacey's Astro Tuff Truck off her. Thanks Stacey for sale! Lovely piece of kit well made robust stable and the inflatable tyres make pulling my heavy astrophotography setup in amd out across grass a breeze. I need a knee replacement and needed something easier to move and more stable than the homemade dolly I have used last 5 years. It had done a great job but physical illness meant this was time was something better.....and the Astro Tuff Truk definitely seems to do the job well. My version is one with pier - great addition - and EQ6 plate on top of pier - needed to provide my own north post - I really don't know why manufacturers don't provide north posts for these things - and optional accessory tray - in my view not really optional but necessary! Comes in bright white nicely done. Highly recommended. And it is UK built. The photos show the Astro Tuff Truk with my homemade dolly next door to it. More photos on my website www.astronomy.me.uk Andy

NB I should have said these are 1.4GHz dishes not 1.6GHz - I wrote it incorrectly Andy

See picture Andy

These new dishes from Nooelec provide an inexpensive way of buying a 1m class radio astronomy dish for 1420Mhz hydrogen line observing of Milky Way. I have tested these dishes at home with success. Results on link below. http://astronomy.me.uk/testing-my-2-x-1-4ghz-nooelec-mesh-dishes Andy

No problem I will let everyone know ow how it does

I am going through a process of testing these aerials. I have 2 of them - testing first one can be seen st this link: http://astronomy.me.uk/testing-right-nooelec-1-4ghz-mesh-dish-26-2-24 Andy

I think I might have caught the X6.3 flare on my SuperSID monitor. Of you know about these things let me know whether you think I did capture it! The sharks fin spike on my trace at 9-10pm on graph on link below. http://astronomy.me.uk/comparing-supersid-data-from-lro-with-that-from-stanford-solar-center-22-2-24-when-there-as-x6-3-solar-flare Andy

At last I am having a go at making myself a Cantenna (a type of aerial made using old tin can - in this case designed to detect hydrogen on 1420MHz in Milky Way)! If this works it will demonstrate that I can make a full hydrogen line radio telescope for < £100! This would be a great project to offer members of my local astronomy group. Andy Click on link to see photos of my project: https://astronomy.me.uk/making-hydrogen-line-1420mhz-cantenna

Yes I presented at Astrofest. I am trying to encourage people to consider alternatives to traditional amateur astronomy. Yes I bought these detectors - which is why I wanted to tell people about them. I am in process of conducting range of other experiments with them - just haven't posted on those yet! More information on how they work and detect muons from cosmic rays available at CosmicWatch::catch yourself a muon (mit.edu) Andy

More on Muon Detectors at European Astrofest on Saturday in London at 2:40pm! Andy

Read the attached and more detail on my website on link below - using bananas to test my UKRAA Muon Detectors! Andy Testing UKRAA Cosmicwatch muon detectors with radiation source available in every home 28/1/2024 – astronomy.network Lichfield Radio Observatory (LRO) LRO-Muon-Detection-rates-with-various-amounts-bananas-280124.pdf

That's incredible and wonderful! Folks are 3D printing everything these days! Have you published the 3D printing source files?

Wonderful stuff! I made an EQ platform years ago but nowhere near as beautiful or compact as yours. How did you cut the sectors? Andy

Success! Now also got rotation curve and demonstrated dark matter see www.astronomy.me.uk Helped greatly by using Ted Cline's ezRA suite of software

You can see the NooeLEC SAWBird H1 in action on my website www.astronomy.me.uk

The interferometer progresses although no successful observations yet see www.astronomy.me.uk

NB Although previous posts have commented on large field of view of radio telescopes, I have noted that I can see gaps on my Milky Way hydrogen map with my 86 x 86cm array (equivalent to roughly 86cm dish so not big) when my changes in declination are > 5 degrees. However this is question of neatness of the map - I don't need this much detail to either map spiral arms of Milky Way or to demonstrate existence of dark matter, both those observations being quite resilient to variations in equipment used (some people have even used a tin can as their aerial!) Andy

You have had lot of detailed responses above. Simplistically, the options for small radio telescopes are: 1. You point the telescope in one direction at particular declination then leave the rotation of the Earth ro bring different parts of the sky into field of view of the telescope. The declination can then be varied to cover more of sky. I just point it and then use inclinometer to find out what angle I have got. I use this method on my dipole array see www.astronomy.me.uk 2. Small dishes can also sit on EQ6 mounts as long as they are light. Ideal for msh dishes (ie not solid ones) due to weight and effect of wind blowing on solid dishes. Bear in mind relatively large efeect of small weights far away from fulcrum. Also problem here is that radio telescopes left out all time and astrophotography mounts do not tend to like rain amd snow on them! 3. Purpose built rotators and directional finders, difficult to buy over the counter, so usually hand-built by amateur themselves. Andy

How would you use this for spectrometry? For that you need: 1. Some means collecting light from telescope. 2. Some way dispersing light unto its spectrum (slit, prism, etc.) 3. Some method of recording spectrum, usually a camera.