Building my own radio telescope

[pipnina]

After seeing the 'astronomical' (pun intended) prices for pre-built radio telescopes, I'd like to try my hads at reducing the cost by building one myself!

However, I haven't the faintest idea of how to start, I could probably make a few sheets of metal into the right shape, but I'd also need a mount, a sensor and support for the sensor.

Can anyone recommend some material for me to work on for this poential project? Or maybe just dash my hopes from the get-go and say "It'll still cost £abcd don't bother"

Thanks!

    ~pipnina

[Bizibilder]

There are some designs on the web (Google is your friend here) that show how to construct a radio scope from an old satellite tv dish.  Never tried myself, but they apparently work.

[bob1957]

Hi, try the British Astronomical Association Radio Astronomy Group:

http://www.britastro.org/radio/

Lots of info and projects there.

Cheers, Bob

[k9wis]

I built a radio telescope for my physics senior project back in 1996..the original plan was to measure solar flux at 2800 Mhz, but found a lot of ham radio stuff available for 2400 Mhz..wound some helical antennas, purchased a downeast microwave converter kit for 2400 Mhz to 144 Mhz and fed that to an 144 Mhz ham radio receiver. We used a chart recording program to measure solar noise at 2400 Mhz..we also heard all the illegal microwave ovens the kids had in the dorm rooms. foruntately that was before the 2400 Mhz wireless lan boom..

Brian K9WIS

[mcolbert]

pipnina there are quite a few resources around on the net as suggested above but also don't forget to chase up some of the ham radio groups - they will have excellent advice regarding interference and so on.

A couple of project based texts to search for either through eBay or ABE would be;

1. Radio Astronomy Projects  by William Lonc  ISBN  1-889076-07-4

2. Listening to Jupiter by Richard S Flagg  ISBN1-889076-06-6

3. The Radio Universe by JS Hey is a good intro to the radio sky

4. An Introduction to Radio Astronomy by B.F.Burke and F.Graham-Smith is a good introductory university text as well.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, especially if you track down blogs or amateur websites.

If you need any further details about the above let me know.

michael

[k9wis]

pipnina there are quite a few resources around on the net as suggested above but also don't forget to chase up some of the ham radio groups - they will have excellent advice regarding interference and so on.

A couple of project based texts to search for either through eBay or ABE would be;

1. Radio Astronomy Projects  by William Lonc  ISBN  1-889076-07-4

2. Listening to Jupiter by Richard S Flagg  ISBN1-889076-06-6

3. The Radio Universe by JS Hey is a good intro to the radio sky

4. An Introduction to Radio Astronomy by B.F.Burke and F.Graham-Smith is a good introductory university text as well.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, especially if you track down blogs or amateur websites.

If you need any further details about the above let me know.

michael

that Bill Lonc book is very good and the author responds to emails...well at least he did in 1996 when I built my telescope