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The 4.6 meter smiley dish at the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, soon to be available for student use via the internet. the dish was formerly used by the military, and the face was used to taunt any spy satellites passing overhead! (Credit: SETI League photo used by permission under SETIs fair use policy).

Is there truly anything new under the Sun? Well, when it comes to amateur astronomy, many observers are branching out beyond the optical. And while its true that you cant carry out infrared or X-ray astronomy from your backyard or at least, not until amateurs begin launching their own space telescopes you can join in the exciting world of amateur radio astronomy.

Well admit right out the gate that were a relative neophyte when it comes to the realm of radio astronomy. Weve done radio observations of meteor showers in tandem with optical observations and have delved into the trove of information on constructing radio telescopes over the years. Consider this post a primer of sorts, an intro into the world of radio amateur astronomy. If theres enough interest, well follow up with a multi-part saga, constructing and utilizing our own ad-hoc redneck array in our very own backyard with which to alarm the neighbors and probe the radio cosmos.

The Itty-Bitty Array- Re-purposing a TV Dish for amateur astronomy. Credit: NSF/NRAO/Assoc. Universities, Inc.

And much like our exploits in planetary webcam imaging, weve discovered that you may have gear kicking around in the form of an old TV dish remember satellite TV? in your very own backyard. A simple radio telescope setup need not consist of anything more sophisticated than a dish (receiver), a signal strength detector (often standard for pointing a dish at a satellite during traditional installation) and a recorder. As you get into radio astronomy, youll want to include such essentials as mixers, oscillators, and amplifiers to boost your signal.

Frequency is the name of the game in amateur radio astronomy, and most scopes are geared towards the 18 megahertz to 10,000 megahertz range. A program known as Radio-SkyPipe makes a good graphic interface to turn your laptop into a recorder.

Radio astronomy was born in 1931, when Karl Jansky began researching the source of a faint background radio hiss with his dipole array while working for Bell Telephone. Jansky noticed the signal strength corresponded to the passage of the sidereal day, and correctly deduced that it was coming from the core of our Milky Way galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius. Just over a decade later, Australian radio astronomer Ruby Payne-Scott pioneered solar radio astronomy at the end of World War II, making the first ever observations of Type I and III solar bursts as well as conducting the first radio interferometry observation.

A replica of Janskys first steerable antenna at Green Bank, West Virginia. (Public Domain image)

What possible targets exist for the radio amateur astronomer? Well, just like those astronomers of yore, youll be able to detect the Sun, the Milky Way Galaxy, Geostationary and geosynchronous communication satellites and more. The simple dish system described above can also detect temperature changes on the surface of the Moon as it passes through its phases. Jupiter is also a fairly bright radio target for amateurs as well.

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Adventures in (Radio) Amateur Astronomy