Radio Astronomy: An Informal Talk
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Transcript of Radio Astronomy: An Informal Talk
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Radio Astronomy:An Informal Talk
Presented to the
High School Students’ Science/Technology Conference
19 October 2007
by
Dr. Harold Geller, GMU
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What I’ll talk about
• Telescopes
• Electromagnetic waves
• Radioastronomy basics
• NRAO at Green Bank, West Virginia
• Small Radio Telescope at George Mason University
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What does a telescope do?
• Collect electromagnetic waves– Collecting ability proportional to the square of
the diameter of the objective
• Resolve electromagnetic sources– Related to the atmosphere, wavelength and
curvature of the objective• Magnify surfaces of planets and the Moon
– Magnification only of Moon, Sun and planets
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Looking Beyond the
Eyes
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Optical Telescopes
Reflector
Refractor
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Different Views of Sun
Sun in Hydrogen-alpha Sun in X-ray
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Radio Astronomy
Basics
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A Little More Detail
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Jansky’s Original Radiotelescope
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Grote Reber’s Telescope
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170 foot Diameter Radio-
telescope at Green Bank,
WV
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The 100-meter Green
Bank Telescope
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Even Bigger than you Think
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Jupiter in Radio
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Saturn in Radio
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3C296 Radio/Optical
Composite
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A Vision for George Mason (based upon Univ. Indianapolis)
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Small Radio Telescope Justification
• Radio science observations in the L-band – L-band lies in the 1400-1427 MHz region of
the electromagnetic spectrum– detection of what astronomers call the 21-cm
line of hydrogen• this is a portion of the hydrogen spectrum, in the
radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is generated by the neutral hydrogen clouds in the interstellar medium
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Small Radio Telescope Justification
• Observations in C-band, which is 4313-4338 MHz and 3788-3813 MHz– Radio science observations in the C-band allow
for the radio emission examination of the moon, which acts as a body at a temperature of 200 K.
– Students will be able to scan the moon, and detect the estimated 6000 joules of energy from the lunar surface.
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GMU SRT Background
• Funding– National Science Foundation
• education portion of grant won by Dr. Rita Sambruna
• Order History– ordered first week of June 2002
• stated 12 week delivery time
– received 15 October 2002• damaged antenna
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GMU SRT Background Part II
• Order History– boxes damaged– FedEx insurance inspector called and visited to
assess damage - refused claim– replacement parts to be shipped by vendor
• Base assembled on roof– 1 November 2002
• Remaining electronics and replacement antenna parts received 30 January 2003
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Did You Say Fragile?
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Picking Up the Pieces on the Roof
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Whistle While You Work
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Tolerance
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Cleanup On The Roof
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The Base Of SRT
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Servo Motors Attachment
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Servos with Ring Assembly
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Dish/Receiver Assembly
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Readying for Final Mechanical Assembly
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From Mechanical to Electrical
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Assembled and Ready to Test
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Sample Data
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Even Smaller - Radio Jove
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Small Radio Science Demonstration Projects
• Undergraduate research– Steve Richardson
• web site built with some results from data acquired using U of Indianapolis
– http://physics.gmu.edu/~arichar6/radio/index.html
• prepared presentation for GMU “innovations” fair
• prepared presentation for CPAC meeting at Bucknell University
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Really Smoothing
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Playing With The Data
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A Potpourri Of Color
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Family Portrait (radioastronomy conference)
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Radio Astronomy Observatory at George Mason University
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Looking To The Future
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GMU Optical Observatory
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OnLine References
• http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/intro/image.index.html• http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/intro/faq.html• http://donald.phast.umass.edu/~fcrao/education/
report1.html• http://www.haystack.mit.edu/• http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/radioastronomy/• http://www.bambi.net/sara.html• http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/
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Book References
• Radio Astronomy by John D. Kraus• An Introduction to Radio Astronomy by Bernard
Burke• The Amateur Radio Astronomer’s Handbook by
John Potter Shields• Radio Astronomy for the Amateur by David
Heiserman• Radio Astronomy (Above and Beyond) by Adele
Richardson