Is the telescope design available anywhere for hobbyists to build? I can't seem to find anything in the article or in a separate search. I'd be interested in perhaps putting one of these together to do radio astronomy with my kids.
edit: It looks like NASA is back selling Radio JOVE kits again. So this might be your only turnkey choice. It uses 2x large wire dipoles for 20.1 MHz for receiving Jupiter/Io radio bursts which you just view in a spectrogram on a computers (includes SDR receiver): https://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/kits/
I think the SETI "Horn of Plenty" design is a pretty good way to get started with kids. The antenna itself uses metalized foam board with copper (or even aluminum tape) to make a pyramidal horn. Making the waveguide out of folded aluminum siding is a bit more kid dangerous (tin snips cutting sheet metal). And the actual antenna is a monopole feed placed in the waveguide. You'll still probably need an cheap ebay low noise amplifier, less cheap hydrogen line bandpass filter, a SDR receiver with a couple MHz instantaneous bandwidth and a computer. Cheap RTL-SDR usb receivers aren't great at 1420 MHz but they do work if you have a good filter. You'll have to decide on the receiver based on the processing toolchain you chose and it's requirements. Examples using GNU Radio https://github.com/ccera-astro or https://wvurail.org/dspira-lessons/
The "science" output of this isn't very exciting to kids as it's just a spectrum plot for a point in the sky at the time showing how fast towards or away from us some of the hydrogen is going. But if you do it over many full sidereal days at different elevations and record the elevation w/time then you can make a nice looking "image" of the sky showing something useful.
Call me cynical, but pretty much 100% if the time when there is an article about "teen accomplishes almost impossible scientific feat" or "group of teens design world-saving product costing pennies", it turns out to be a disingenuous narrative pushed by some adult with an ulterior motive and often deep pockets.
The complete lack of details in the article does not do anything for its credibility.
If I understood correctly they mean that these uplifting stories end up not panning out and it’s more about publicity than accomplishing the thing. I’m genuinely curious about the kind of SDR that works for a price like this and how you fit it into a $500 BOM.
I think that might be a bit harsh. Have there been scams on Kickstarter and other type places? Sure. Are all of them scams? Doubtful. Some people just have no experience creating a viable company selling a product that they designed. It takes people by surprise by how expensive and difficult it can be. Sadly, they find out the hard way after spending all of the money raised on redesigns and other unexpected deviations from the happy path original plan. That does not mean they were a scam from the start though
Who in the world would have the expertise to operate one of these? In a “low resource” high school? The problem isn’t (just) having the equipment.
There are so few teachers with enough knowledge to engage. Well-resourced, highly motivated kids might be able to read on line, but that’s a real stretch for the rest.
What an awesome story. Not too many stories about Aussies out there, but what Han brothers are doing with Unsloth in AI, and stories like this one, makes this fellow Aussie super proud!
It's a shame the title was so interesting, but not enough for a person to spend time write something about it in the body. Not just as a compare and contrast, but as a meaningful conveyance of the story and details. That's where a real article comes in - to be more than just an expansion of the original prompt.
Does anyone know if there is an official site/repo/page for this project somewhere with info about the actual design?
> Access setup guides and project resources through the documentation menu. We recommend starting with installation instructions, then following the software workflow for recording and processing data from RTL-SDR devices.
But there is no "documentation menu" that I can find.
Very interesting project, I'd be interested in seeing their system architecture in more depth and what tricks they used to bring the unit cost down.
Another radio telescope project I saw a while ago """misused""" low cost universal GNSS receivers ICs (MAX2769) as their RF frontend, which I found to be novel since these chips operate in a weird performance regime of low resolution (1- or 2-bit output) but very high sensitivity.
In Australia (at least 15 years ago) you sit your exams and get a score. The universities then set a minimum score for each program based on expected enrollment and capacity. If your score is above the program score, you're in automatically. You only go through the American style interviews if you come in slightly below the bar and are hoping for secondary consideration. These highschool students are probably going to have no problem with their scores, so this is a moot point.
This seems to be an essentially empty boilerplate page?
"Instructions
Access setup guides and project resources through the documentation menu. We recommend starting with installation instructions, then following the software workflow for recording and processing data from RTL-SDR devices. "
I'm in the long process (slow due to competing priorities) of building an 18" visual telescope because the views can be really cool and beautiful. Plus it blows my mind that I might be able to hand grind something to see light from deep space that could be thousands of years old.
So, my question is, are there any cool things I can do with a radio telescope that have that same sort of intrinsic cool/wow factor?
bgoated01 | a day ago
Isamu | a day ago
_Microft | a day ago
https://physicsopenlab.org/2020/10/10/a-simple-11-2-ghz-radi...
The HN discussion (2020) about this can be found there:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26078761
superkuh | a day ago
I think the SETI "Horn of Plenty" design is a pretty good way to get started with kids. The antenna itself uses metalized foam board with copper (or even aluminum tape) to make a pyramidal horn. Making the waveguide out of folded aluminum siding is a bit more kid dangerous (tin snips cutting sheet metal). And the actual antenna is a monopole feed placed in the waveguide. You'll still probably need an cheap ebay low noise amplifier, less cheap hydrogen line bandpass filter, a SDR receiver with a couple MHz instantaneous bandwidth and a computer. Cheap RTL-SDR usb receivers aren't great at 1420 MHz but they do work if you have a good filter. You'll have to decide on the receiver based on the processing toolchain you chose and it's requirements. Examples using GNU Radio https://github.com/ccera-astro or https://wvurail.org/dspira-lessons/
The "science" output of this isn't very exciting to kids as it's just a spectrum plot for a point in the sky at the time showing how fast towards or away from us some of the hydrogen is going. But if you do it over many full sidereal days at different elevations and record the elevation w/time then you can make a nice looking "image" of the sky showing something useful.
If your kids are older and ambitious take a look at the STARE2 project for detecting fast radio bursts which does actual honest to goodness publishable (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2872-x) radio astronomy with a meter scale horn+receiver setup. https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/magnificent-burst-within-... https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.05077 The secret sauce of STARE2 is math heavy calibration though.
kiproping | a day ago
bdangubic | a day ago
Pay08 | a day ago
ssgodderidge | a day ago
deepspace | a day ago
The complete lack of details in the article does not do anything for its credibility.
bix6 | a day ago
vlovich123 | a day ago
dylan604 | a day ago
fn-mote | a day ago
Who in the world would have the expertise to operate one of these? In a “low resource” high school? The problem isn’t (just) having the equipment.
There are so few teachers with enough knowledge to engage. Well-resourced, highly motivated kids might be able to read on line, but that’s a real stretch for the rest.
amelius | a day ago
armcat | a day ago
unrvl22 | a day ago
ngriffiths | a day ago
ssgodderidge | a day ago
zamadatix | a day ago
Does anyone know if there is an official site/repo/page for this project somewhere with info about the actual design?
Maxious | a day ago
wizzwizz4 | a day ago
But there is no "documentation menu" that I can find.
tomhow | a day ago
DoctorOetker | a day ago
tomhow | 20 hours ago
peterus | a day ago
Another radio telescope project I saw a while ago """misused""" low cost universal GNSS receivers ICs (MAX2769) as their RF frontend, which I found to be novel since these chips operate in a weird performance regime of low resolution (1- or 2-bit output) but very high sensitivity.
bluebands | a day ago
0xfaded | a day ago
bvan | a day ago
qwertyforce | a day ago
dkozel | a day ago
A few other similar projects:
https://astrochart.github.io/
Https://arise.seti.org/
https://wvurail.org/dspira- lessons/
https://www.haystack.mit.edu/haystack-public-outreach/srt-th...
https://pictortelescope.com/
https://github.com/0xcoto/virgo
DoctorOetker | a day ago
"Instructions
Access setup guides and project resources through the documentation menu. We recommend starting with installation instructions, then following the software workflow for recording and processing data from RTL-SDR devices. "
There is no "documentation menu"?
giantg2 | 14 hours ago
So, my question is, are there any cool things I can do with a radio telescope that have that same sort of intrinsic cool/wow factor?