Radio telescope question

[Manok101]

I've been toying with the idea of trying to build a radio telescope and most of the posts or talk I've seen seems to suggest they can only look at one type of object, say Jupiter or meteorites or whatever my question is is this an accurate understanding or are there radio scopes that can look at more than one kind of thing?

[glowjet]

This inquiry has been moved to Radio Astronomy and Spectroscopy

John.

[Peter Drew]

It has been the case that you needed a considerable size of radio telescope to be able to do much more than detect the Sun, Jupiter or meteors. In recent times detectors have improved in sensitivity and cost, our in-house radio astronomy enthusiast is currently building a 2 metre unit based on a TV dish.

[Manok101]

What would be the cost of building one or just buying one? and my origional question wasn't answered.

[Auntystatic]

its horses for courses as they say, to listen to the emissions from Jupiter most people have a receiver that tunes in on 20 MHz so you ideally need an aerial that is about 7 meters across, to detect meteors a 2 meter aerial and a vhf aircraft band receiver is all you need, to detect the hydrogen line you ideally need a dish that has a detector that receives the 21cm line at 1420.40575177 MHz

[Ptarmigan]

Modest amateur radio gear at 144MHz (2m) using a low noise preamp and 7-ele yagi can detect the milky way in the Sagittarius (galaxy centre) region easily** with drift scan.

With some care the milky way in Perseus (180deg the other way looking out through the galaxy plane) can also be seen.

At this time in the solar cycle (max) the sun is an easy target at 144MHz ( but, actually, it is a lot quieter than in previous cycles which is causing some surprise ! )

**I am in a (electromagnetic-)quiet semi-rural location, equivalent to a dark sky visual location, ymmv in city or industrial area with consequent computers and other electronic devices kicking up radio-noise,

[Manok101]

I've always been interested in pulsars, would that be too big a target for an amateur?

[badgerchap]

I have heard of amateurs doing pulsar detection, but from what I've read they're not a beginners target. There is a website for the UK Amateur Radio Astronomy, I think something like UKARA.com or something. It's rarely maintained now but there is still some interesting info on there. A good place to start is with an old Sky dish. If you can get hold of one about a metre in diameter and you're prepared to do a bit of fairly simple electronics work, you can definitely get started. Being in a radio quiet zone would make your life considerably easier though!

[robin_astro]

A good place to start is with an old Sky dish. If you can get hold of one about a metre in diameter and you're prepared to do a bit of fairly simple electronics work, you can definitely get started. Being in a radio quiet zone would make your life considerably easier though!

I had a play with one of these here

http://www.threehillsobservatory.co.uk/astro/radio_astronomy/radio_astronomy_1.htm

Alternatively you can get to play with some real radio telescopes (including measuring pulsars) by taking the Jodrell Bank "Introduction to Radio Astronomy" course which includes a hands on weekend - great fun!

Cheers

Robin

[Jon Byrne]

The course at Jodrell Bank is no longer available by the looks of their site as this is something I was interested in doing. There is one at Wurzburg that you can book time on the site is here

http://serveurwurzburg.obs.u-bordeaux1.fr/index.php

I had a session on it last week and got plenty of data I just need to try and understand what any of it means now.

Hope that helps

[robin_astro]

That's a pity. When I took it (about 10 years ago) it was run by Tim O'Brien who I see is now associate director. I meant to put some of the observing practicals up on the website but never got round to it. Some of them should also be doable using the Wurzburg setup. I will have to dig them out

Cheers

Robin

[Auntystatic]

http://hackaday.com/2012/06/21/building-a-radio-telescope-for-a-school-science-project/

[bob1957]

Does anybody know if there is a project in the UK similar to the Wurzburg in France? Had a quick look on the Internet and nothing comes up.

Thanks,

Bob

[robin_astro]

Does anybody know if there is a project in the UK similar to the Wurzburg in France? Had a quick look on the Internet and nothing comes up.

Thanks,

Bob

Hi Bob,

You can access data from the 7m dish at Jodrell Bank but it looks like you need to be a student at the Univesity of Manchester to drive it

http://webmail.jb.man.ac.uk/distance/observatory/index.php

Cheers

Robin

[bob1957]

Hi Robin,

Thanks for the info about the 7m dish at Jodrell. I start as a mature student at Manchester Uni in September on the physics undergraduate course, so the material on this site will be very interesting.

Cheers,

Bob

[Ptarmigan]

I've always been interested in pulsars, would that be too big a target for an amateur?

Depends upon your definition of "amateur", the size of your pocket and how much real estate you have !

An understanding of antenna aperture vs. working frequency (wavelength) would help. (vis á vis "TV" dishes)

Achievable receiver equivalent noise temperature vs source temperature are productive areas of investigation.

For pulsars you will need some sort of 'synchronous' detection with a knowledge of their frequency or a sophisticated dsp FFT algorithm with lots of data.

http://www.radiosky.com/rspplsr.html

http://www.moetronix...ulsar/index.htm

http://www.rfspace.c.../Astronomy.html

[Manok101]

It's sad to me that nearly everything is out of my budget. So I guess I'll just have to settle for waiting for that one night a month when I can actually have clear skies. Oh well.

[Wyvern]

I suggest you get hold of "The Radio Sky and how to observe it", by Jeff Lashley from Springer . (ISBN 9781441908827.) He must be making a fortune from my recommendations of this book.! Read and start building.

Enjoy!

Les

[athornett]

Hi Manok,

I agree "Radio Sky and how to observe it" is a great starting point. You can also buy a SID monitor from UKRAA for around £100 and that will get you started with good data you can analyse regardless of the size of your house or graden, or location.

Andy