Track Movement of Milky Way With Amateur Radio Telescope

Discussion in 'Amateur Radio News' started by W0PV, Oct 2, 2019.

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W0PV Ham Member QRZ Page

N3RW said: ↑

The Ewen-Purcell horn sits at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) main road in Green Bank WV. A drift scan is better than tracking the source as it allows for a Gaussian plot of the received noise from the source. You may be interested in my July 1995 QST article, Radio Astronomy and the Radio Amateur. Former Associate Astronomer at NRAO. See also my QRZ.com page for the radio telescopes I've used. 73, Rob N3RW
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Thanks for the response Rob.

Nice web page you have too -> What's in Milky Way ... Besides Us?

I had been thinking that the OP project could be a great teaching aid in secondary school STEM.

73, John, WØPV

W0PV, Oct 6, 2019

#31
9Z4A Ham Member QRZ Page

waw amazing.

9Z4A, Oct 6, 2019

#32
W1YW Ham Member QRZ Page

W0PV said: ↑

Thanks for the response Rob.

Nice web page you have too -> What's in Milky Way ... Besides Us?

I had been thinking that the OP project could be a great teaching aid in secondary school STEM.

73, John, WØPV
Click to expand...

The site of the 'horn' is now called the "Green Bank Observatory". It is no longer part of the 'National Radio Astronomy Observatory'.

FYI---

W1YW, Oct 6, 2019

#33
K1FQL XML Subscriber QRZ Page

To increase the integration time, a tracker is required.
You can build one or buy one for this small antenna.

K1FQL, Oct 7, 2019

#34

W1YW likes this.
KK4NSF Ham Member QRZ Page

K1FQL said: ↑

To increase the integration time, a tracker is required.
You can build one or buy one for this small antenna.
Click to expand...

that's easy: a good equitorial mount, as I noted above, will allow integration times up to almost 12hours at a time..... and can be reset with good accuracy for multi-day integrations.

KK4NSF, Oct 9, 2019

#35
N3RW Ham Member QRZ Page

W1YW said: ↑

The site of the 'horn' is now called the "Green Bank Observatory". It is no longer part of the 'National Radio Astronomy Observatory'.

FYI---
Click to expand...

Yes, you are correct. I've been there on/off since the mid-80s. Old habit of calling it NRAO. Just love using the 20 m telescope for extra-galactic flux measurements.

N3RW, Oct 13, 2019

#36
N3RW Ham Member QRZ Page

W0PV said: ↑

Thanks for the response Rob.

Nice web page you have too -> What's in Milky Way ... Besides Us?

I had been thinking that the OP project could be a great teaching aid in secondary school STEM.

73, John, WØPV
Click to expand...

My web page has been used at both the high school and college level. I built it while working on the 3.5 cm & 2.1 cm galactic plane survey using the 13.6 m dual-frequency radio telescope.

N3RW, Oct 13, 2019

#37

KK4NSF and W0PV like this.
WJ2L Ham Member QRZ Page

Bravo.

WJ2L, Oct 28, 2019

#38
KA0USE Ham Member QRZ Page

W0PV said: ↑

Many radio amateurs are also keen on astronomy so they may enjoy this recent article by David N2LVD in IEEE Spectrum. Click on the bold blue text headline link below for all the details.

73, John, WØPV

Track the Movement of the Milky Way With This DIY Radio Telescope - Detect galactic hydrogen using roof flashing, a paint-thinner can, and a software-defined radio

A young friend recently spent a week learning about radio astronomy at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. His experience prompted me to ask: How big a radio antenna would you need to observe anything interesting? It turns out the answer is a half meter across. For less than US$150 I built one that size, and it can easily detect the motions of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy. Wow!

(A real CAN-tenna )

At my instrument’s “first light,” I was able to detect the neutral hydrogen line with just a little squinting. After getting more familiar with the HDSDR software, I figured out how to time-average the signal and focus on the spectral plot, which I adjusted to display average power.

This plot distinctly showed a hydrogen “line” (really a fat bump) when I pointed my horn at the star Deneb, which is a convenient guide star in the constellation of Cygnus. Point at Cygnus and you’ll receive a strong signal from the local arm of the Milky Way very near the expected 1420.4-MHz frequency. Point it toward Cassiopeia, at a higher galactic longitude, and you’ll see the hydrogen-line signal shift to 1420.5 MHz—a subtle Doppler shift indicating that the material giving off these radio waves is speeding toward us in a relative sense. With some hunting, you may be able to discern two or more distinct signals at different frequencies coming from different spiral arms of the Milky Way.

Don’t expect to hear E.T., but being able to map the Milky Way in this fashion feels strangely empowering. It’ll be $150 well spent.

by David Schneider (N2LVD)
Click to expand...

i LOVE stuff like this!

KA0USE, Oct 30, 2019

#39
EA4GPU Ham Member QRZ Page

WoW This project is totally amazing ...
I always wanted to do some of this ..
Very good job, regards.

EA4GPU, Nov 1, 2019

#40

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