LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Different gains for different antennas 17
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: A RADIO TELESCOPE 2
Figure 2: GOBER REBER’S FIRST RADIO TELESCOPE 3
Figure 3: PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION OF THE WORKING PRINCIPLE OF A RADIO TELESCOPE 9
Figure 4: LNB (Low Noise Blocker) 15
Figure 5: BNC CONNECTORS 15
Figure 6: SIGNAL AMPLIFIER 16
Figure 7: SATELLITE DISH 16
Figure 8: COAXIAL CORD 17
FIGURE 9: 12-VOLT BATTERY 18
Figure 10: Satellite Finder 19
Figure 11: Stereo Panel mount and VB cable 20
Figure 12: Installation of “1/8 “stereo panel mount 20
Figure 13: Radio Skypipe home page 23
Figure 14: THE CONSTRUCTED RADIO TESLESCOPE 26
Figure 15: DAY 1 READINGS 27
Figure 16: DAY ONE GRAPH OF FREQUENCY AGAINST TIME (12PM TO 1PM) 28
Figure 17: DAY 2 READINGS 28
Figure 18: DAY TWO GRAPH OF FREQUENCY AGAINST TIME (12PM TO 1PM) 29
Figure 19: DAY 1 AND DAY 2 GRAPH OF FREQUENCY AGAINST TIME (12PM TO 1PM) 30
ABSTRACT
In this work I have constructed an IBT radio telescope model, assembling the components and single handedly coupling the components, I made use of a satellite finder, a satellite dish, a signal amplifier and a 12-volt power supply and I tested the Telescope by doing the drift scan of the sun.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 BACKGROUND STUDY
Developments in the technology of electronics and radar provided means for the establishment of radio astronomy. Other discoveries of importance to astronomers were made by chance during the World War II but it was not until its end that the new techniques could be applied to Astronomy research for its own sake.Telescope is an astronomical instrument that could not be completely defined as a word because it has no simple definition. For instance, a telescope used to observe gamma ray can be a pack of electronic sensors launched above the atmosphere while a radio telescope can be a large number of aerials or antennas. There are different types of telescopes such as optical telescope, radio telescope, infrared telescope, ultra violet telescope, x-ray telescope and gamma rays telescope. Telescopes are used to magnify, resolve and gather light. Its magnifying power tells us how many times a telescopic image is larger than a naked eye viewed image. Another property of a telescope is it’s resolving power that is its ability to give a clearer image and gather light.
Radio telescope on its own is a form of directional antenna used in radio astronomy and in tracking and collecting data from satellites and space probes. In their astronomical role, they differ from optical telescope in that they operate in the radio frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum where they can detect and collect data on radio sources. Radio telescopes are typically large parabolic dishes used singularly or as an array. The range of frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum that makes up the radio spectrum is very large.
Figure 1: A RADIO TELESCOPE
Almost everything we know about the universe, about stars and stellar systems, their distribution, kinematics and dynamics, has been obtained from information brought to us by electromagnetic radiation. Only a small part of our knowledge stems from material sources of information, such as meteorites that hit the surface of the Earth, cosmic particles of radiation or samples of material collected by manned or unmanned space probes.For thousands of years, all the information that astronomers gathered about the universe was based on visible light. In the twentieth century, however, the wavelength range was slightly expanded. Radio waves were the first part of the electromagnetic spectrum beyond the visible light to be exploited for astronomy. Karl Jansky, a young electrical engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, was the first to discover these waves. This happened in the early 1930s, as he was trying to locate what was causing interference with the then-new transatlantic radio link at a wavelength of 14.6 m. He realized that one kind of radio noise is strongest when the constellation Sagittarius is high in the sky. Since the center of our galaxy is located in the direction of Sagittarius, he concluded that he was detecting radio waves from a source beyond the Earth. As Jansky continued his observations, he showed that the principal sources of radiation were distributed throughout the Milky Way, and that the radiation could not be from stellar sources similar to the Sun. Jansky’s observations were taken up and improved by the radio engineer Grote Reber.
Figure 2:GOBER REBER’S FIRST RADIO TELESCOPE
In 1936 he built the first radio telescope, a radio-wave detector dedicated to astronomy. In the years from 1938 to 1944 Reber did his measurements at wavelengths of 1.9 m and 0.63 m. He
detected radio waves emitted from the entire Milky Way, with the greatest emission from the center of the galaxy. These observations were published in the Astrophysical Journal in 1944.Radio physics made great progress during World War II, mainly due to the development of sensitive and efficient radar equipment. After the end of the war, new receivers were instrumental in opening up the new radio window in the Earth’s atmosphere. Each spectral window requires its own technology, and the ways of doing measurements differ for each. Therefore, astronomers view these different techniques as different sections of astronomy: radio astronomy, infrared astronomy, X-ray astronomy and soon.Radio telescopes vary widely, but they all have two basic components: a large radio antenna and a radiometer or radio receiver.
Radio telescopes are used to measure broad-bandwidth continuum radiation as well as spectroscopic features due to atomic and molecular lines found in the radio spectrum of astronomical objects. In early radio telescopes, spectroscopic observations were made by tuning a receiver across a sufficiently large frequency range to cover the various frequencies of interest. This procedure, however, was extremely time-consuming and greatly restricted observations. Modern radio telescopes observe simultaneously at a large number of frequencies by dividing the signals up into as many as several thousand separate frequency channels that may range over a total bandwidth of tens to hundreds of megahertz.
