Newb Interested in Radio Astronomy

[JohnSadlerAstro]

Hi,

I'm rather out of my depth here, I normally work on visible wavelengths but the recent bad weather has meant I haven't got out for proper imaging all year so far. Theres little hope of the weather changing and astro dark ends soon, so I have been looking around for a bit of an alternative as a day-to day, educational pastime to last until I go to uni, and hopefully past then. Radio astronomy looks really interesting, but there doesn't seem to be much information about achievable amateur projects or what options are out there etc.

I have a few questions, I'm afraid they are very newbish ones, perhaps someone could give me some advice though?  

       1. Is there anything interesting that amateurs can actually accomplish with radio astronomy, and what should my expectations be?

       2. How much money will I need to throw into it before I get anything interesting back out?

       3. How much radio and electrical knowledge will I need before beginning, i.e. is this a field for die-hard hams only?

       4. Is there a good source of information about the field?

       5. Is it fun?

Thanks for looking,

John

[james_screech]

I found myself in a similar situation due to cloud over the winter, so I setup a radar meteor system. Cost about £80 plus an old spare laptop I already owned. The cost could have been reduced a little but I bought an antenna instead of making one. I used a NooElec NESDR SMArTee, Antenna Cable 15-Meter & 4 Element Yagi Antenna.

I've had the system running for just under a month and detect about 150-200 meteors a day before the Lyrids started now at the peak of the shower I'm detecting around 300 per day.

[PhotoGav]

32 minutes ago, james_screech said:

I found myself in a similar situation due to cloud over the winter, so I setup a radar meteor system. Cost about £80 plus an old spare laptop I already owned. The cost could have been reduced a little but I bought an antenna instead of making one. I used a NooElec NESDR SMArTee, Antenna Cable 15-Meter & 4 Element Yagi Antenna.

I've had the system running for just under a month and detect about 150-200 meteors a day before the Lyrids started now at the peak of the shower I'm detecting around 300 per day.

James - that sounds very interesting - can you give more details of what you are up to, software used, pics of hardware installed etc. please?

I looked into radio astronomy recently, but quickly realised that to get more than huge fuzzy blobs of not very much you need way more than a small dish! I cite the black hole photograph and what it took to get that - an amazing feat with a spectacular result. It would be fascinating to be able to start to do something along those lines, on a very small scale of course. The huge advantage is that cloud doesn't matter... I visited the Astrophysics Department at Oxford University last year and saw the two 2m dishes that they have installed on the department roof in action and still wasn't very impressed with results, from an aesthetic point of view. To start making any kind of detailed images with radio, I fear that a square kilometre array, or approaching that, is needed!

[james_screech]

15 minutes ago, PhotoGav said:

James - that sounds very interesting - can you give more details of what you are up to, software used, pics of hardware installed etc. please?

I looked into radio astronomy recently, but quickly realised that to get more than huge fuzzy blobs of not very much you need way more than a small dish! I cite the black hole photograph and what it took to get that - an amazing feat with a spectacular result. It would be fascinating to be able to start to do something along those lines, on a very small scale of course. The huge advantage is that cloud doesn't matter... I visited the Astrophysics Department at Oxford University last year and saw the two 2m dishes that they have installed on the department roof in action and still wasn't very impressed with results, from an aesthetic point of view. To start making any kind of detailed images with radio, I fear that a square kilometre array, or approaching that, is needed!

There was an article in the Sky At Night magazine a few years ago, try that as a starting point. It's available here.

Radar meteor observing doesn't produce radio images of the sky, just detection of meteor trails using radio signals reflected from the ionised gas left by the meteor. It has the advantage that cloud and daylight do not effect it so as long as the transmitter is working astronomy can be carried out 24/7/365 irrespective of the weather.

The main software used is Spectrum Lab and the configuration files available also from the above link. I'm far from an expert on this as I've only just got my system up and running.

[PhotoGav]

1 hour ago, james_screech said:

There was an article in the Sky At Night magazine a few years ago, try that as a starting point. It's available here.

Radar meteor observing doesn't produce radio images of the sky, just detection of meteor trails using radio signals reflected from the ionised gas left by the meteor. It has the advantage that cloud and daylight do not effect it so as long as the transmitter is working astronomy can be carried out 24/7/365 irrespective of the weather.

The main software used is Spectrum Lab and the configuration files available also from the above link. I'm far from an expert on this as I've only just got my system up and running.

Perfect - that's really useful info - thank you! This could be a very interesting project to set up at my local school.

[JohnSadlerAstro]

Hi,

Thanks for the information, that will be really useful!

John

[Alan White]

Just read this on my quest and tank you @james_screech for the links to the basic kit, very simple.
I have looked at the S@N article and it has wetted my appetite, but making the kit was a concern.
The two things I should not be trusted to make are electronics or woodwork!

Is any old laptop up to the job or is a certain specification needed??

 

[james_screech]

I used an old laptop I had laying around, 32bit 4GB ram, Core 2 2GHz processor. 

 

James