Radio Astronomy

Just a quick question, is anyone doing any of this?

I have done some, on a hiatus at the moment while I get a new pen recorder. Meteors with an old Network (RTE) 2 aerial and a Bearcat scanner were a favourite of mine. I could bring the aerial in the car and bring it with me. Worked a treat at the IMC 2010 in Armagh!

Sean McKenna (in MAC too) also had Ireland's first amateur radio telescope in the early 90s. He has plans and parts, some of which I got, on how to achieve the right aerials according to your targets (Jupiter, meteors, pulsars, solar flares/aurorae, etc).

Michael O'Connell also has a computer-based setup 7 years ago. It did work for a time and allowed some recording (simulation-wise, graphically) of the results via peak graphs.

Setup of a radio telescope is cheap with no maintenance, but you will have to make an alternation at the signal output if you want audio only, plugin to a PC or a pen recorder. I am surprised very few people have ever done it in Ireland.

Seanie.

yeah that's the kind of thing I want to get into. Meteors firstly.

Perhaps we should have this as a MAC meeting topic ?