The feed horn is just a box it doesn't have to be made of anything special. And yes surprisingly an antenna IS a piece of wire...Look I never claimed to achieve anywhere near the sensitivity of professional instruments. I do what I can with what I've got,
This is awesome and inspiring. Now I need to find older (affordable) receiver and spectrum analyzer, and to figure out how to convince my wife I need a 6 foot satellite dish...
I am wanting to get started in radio astronomy, and appreciate this video very much. I have done visual astronomy of one sort or another since I was a kid, but radio astronomy opens up more of the wonders of the universe! Edit: I subbed! Interesting stuff you are doing. I am also wanting to do a high altitude weather balloon flight in a project in conjunction with my kids STEM school. I follow OLHZ, too!
My dad and I back in the 80s built a radio telescope in our backyard for my six and seventh-grade science fair projects. In seventh grade, I took first place in my division in my Ohio Regional science fair. Nothing as sophisticated as this. We build it out of wood, PVC piping, and chicken wire and we took readings on an oscilloscope. we had to manually position the antenna wish I had the kind of Technology we have now for this back then. Of course we had interference, but not all the cell phones, Etc we have these days.
Thats prerty cool man. The technology available to the amateur nowadays is amazing. I'd like tondo a follow up video at some point ... thanks for sharing and watching !
Well Done! and Thank you for sharing this! I've been wanting to do this for a number of years and have been trying to overcome some obsticles in accomplishing it. You are very inspiring in your presentation and I can't wait to review more of your videos and observations!
Well Thank you for your encouragement and kind words ! There is much that can be done with today`s resources and yesterday`s equipment ! I appreciate your support! Thanks for watching !
Fascinating stuff. I'm a HAM/amateur radio enthusiast (callsign TA1HYK) and I've been wanting to get into radio astronomy for years. This is a very encouraging video and shows that even regular folks like us can do real science in our backyards. Much love and respect from Istanbul, Turkiye!
What a cool project! I'm a visual astronomer but radio astronomy has always fascinated me. I'd love to see a video explaining how all of the components here work together in a bit more detail :D
Thanks ! Yes you're right! I briefly talk about it and just gave a quick overview . I am always working on different project and this one might get revisited at some point! Thanks for watching!!!
wow finally a radio-astronomy video with some real content suggestions of making a DIY backyard R-scope. 😎 now for more and better details like part-2 to do this project. 🥰Thanks.
Oh you know not everything is absolutely necessary ! There is still a lot of stuff you can get cheap or even for free! Some people will even pay you to remove eye sore antenna from their yard!
Nickel je comptais me faire un radiotélescope sur les mêmes bases cet été, maintenant je suis décidé ! Toujours passionnantes tes vidéos ! D'ailleurs c'est en bossant sur un projet de fusor que j'ai connu ta chaîne ;).
Thanks man! yes absolutely I am ! but this may be a while since I am tight up with other projects! ! I am open to suggestions anytime! Thanks for watching!
Need a larger dish. I was thinking if a person had a decent sized back yard with some trees in the right places or if he or she had a little money, 6x 40' utility poles could be spaced correctly and a suspended dish can be made. Get that gain increased!!
I was describing how to make a larger parabolic dish out of metal mesh and use the utility pole to hold it up. The one Arecibo was made that way until funding went down and it had to be destroyed. @@stargazer7644
You might also want to check out a NASA program for people called Radio Jove. You can relatively easily listen to the radio transmissions of Jupiter, or the Sun.
That's right! The website I downloaded the chart recorder from (radio-eye) has a whole section about Jupiter's noise, setting up antennas and how to listen ! Thanks ! Appreciate the comments !
You're right I don't know what the hell I am doing ....obviously...Why do I even bother ? Well I tried.... And trying is far better than useless criticism .
FYI: Try seeing if you can capture GOES satellite (Weather Sat photos). I believe GOES transmits at about 1900 Mhz. Just a suggestion if you looking for other ideas to use the equipement you already have.
Geostationary weather satellites broadcast with a different polarization. I know you Cn even download the picture from the signal with a free software.. but your right it's a great idea! Thanks Guy!
Nice video... Sharp and concise. Is it possible to use a helical antenna for detection too? I mean since the Wavelength, frequency range is within the performance range of helical antennas. Thanks
Yes ! It has been done before...but a directional antenna eliminates a lot of the intereference noises thus lowering the background and allowing lower signal detection..
Do you have a new radio astronomy video? I have a 12 GHZ LNB and Nooelec SDR radio doggie on-hand, so I’ve used that at 950 MHZ to monitor the sun’s intensity via my itty bitty radio telescope. Thank you for pointing in the right direction. Hope your doing well these days. Mike
@@Neptunium yes sir u are correct we can find 21 cm Hydrogen line using Yagi. We are doing our project on Hydrogen line detection using various antenna
Can you point this towards the center of the milky way searching for 20.5 mhz like Jansky discovered in 1933 with the once every 23hrs 56 mins where he would pick up a hissing static noise?
Yes ! That's kind of what I did but at a lower frequency. It shouldn't be a problem . I just can't see the Milky Way central area from my location.. thanks for watching!
NINE JOULES bro??!?! Isn't that like oh-my-god particle level energy 😊 I'm thinkin like super ultra femto J or somethin cool demo tho! my only tattoo is of the symbolic representation of the H spin flip on the voyager record.
Cambell soup can, the one that fit the feed horn support. and accept the inner wire length, if its too long cut it if it`s too short find another one or make one. Thanks for watching!
@@DonSolaris oh very good catch!! there is always some disconnect from the video's fillers and what I am doing and talking about. You touch on the editing part of every video I've made. It's not a secret and virtually all RU-vidrs do the same thing . At least little ones like me. You do the experiment, write the script and recreate the experiment for the camera so you don't bore the audience with useless fillers, sometimes , something slips through and that's what you caught... Thanks for watching!
it was an ebay find, i think it was $80 4 years ago. I have seen some in people`s backyard I am sure some people would gladly give them away free ! Thanks for watching!
@@NeptuniumYou can detect the strongest pulsars with a much smaller system than 6m. Check out the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers channel. They have several videos about small aperture pulsar detection. Here's one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hmTGqMzbzPo.html
There is really nothing to it as you can see it's just an exposed wire of a quarter wavelength of interest. So for 21 cm it's about 5 cm long and thats it !
@@rileypowis5319 yes the wire is an antenna you want the radio wave focused be the dish to concentrate on this little wire. Antenna resonates with the frequency (or wavelength) you want to detect so if you want to pick up 20cm for example an antenna about 20 cm long will give you the maximum gain, half length ( in this case 10cm) will also resonates and a quarter or 5cm will work too
Hi there! I love this video and I want to build a radio telescope in my school. here are some questions hope you could answer the questions of mine what band does the antenna design to receive? could I replace the ic7000 and the spectrum analyzer with a good SDR? thank you
Hey thanks for your interest...Antennas are designed for a specific range of frequencies but generally speaking thr tighter the mesh the higher the frequency. The manufacturer usually indicate the gain at a specific wavelength on the specifications chart. Very little googling can easily provide allvtrh info on antennas. Yes you can use an SDR .I have not kept up with the latest model but they are usually ok . Although maybe not as sensitive on the cheaper side of things..I used successfully the bladerf from Nuand but it is not a cheap model...good luck with your project ! Stay curious my friend
Thank you! The international frequency allocation allow some area of the spectrum to be saved for radio astronomy.. so no there shouldn't be anything there. Also, I did this projAnagha Mahajan Anagha Mahajanect in June/July 2020 when air traffic was at a minimum... Thanks again for watching!
Wonderful video. I just have few questions. We made itty bitty telescope and we don't know how to gather data from antenna. Telescope works well(we hope). 1. I found a article which gather data to computer with set-top box.(which we failed)Is there any way to make it success? 2. Is it possible to analyze antenna->oscilloscope->computer or we need more device such as radio receiver? best regards.
Thank you for the support. As described in the video thoroughly, you can take advantage of the sound port of your computer to collect data . The output of the radio is a simple microphone jack. Thats it. Use a head phone jack available everywhere to connect the 2. Very simple . Enjoy
Hello! I am trying to do something similar with a scrap TV antenna I found... I'm kinda starting out here so I was wondering a few things... what do you use the ICOM R7000 for? Is it connected to a PC? How is that connection? Any recommendation in case I am not able to find an ICOM R7000? Thanks a lot!
Hello, with the Icom I can select a frequency . There is an output for chart recording in the front of the unit that accept regular phone jacks This can be directly plugged into the microphone or line in on the PC. I personally like the r7000 because it has a wide receiving band from 30 to 3000 Mhz, it's an older model but it's easy to use reliable and solid construction . Any receiver from the radio amateur world will be fine...
Nice....but your 1420MHz feed is of the wrong size, it is much to small! The 1420.4MHz probe length should be a quarter wave long (only just under 6cm) and the can should be much larger diameter. The probe is then mounted 1/4wave from the bottom of the can.
Its close enough . I know it doesnt look like it on the video but i tried to get as close as possible to the 1/4 wave length....thanks for watching ! Always appreciated comments sir!
As a long term ham radio operator, I am intererested in monitoring the 1420.xxx Hydrogen line in outer space. The thing is, what mode do you put your receiver on??? AM, SSB, FM, etc
Everything was described in the video but if you need more details I'll be happy to provide them as long as you are being specific. Thanks for watching!
@@pi.log10 I used a 6ft dish antenna, the ICOM ICR7000 receiver, a LPT-3000 spectrum analyzer and the BladeRF SDR radio. I also tuned my antenna and receivers with a Gigatronics signal generator 0.01 to 8Ghz. The software is the free download chart recorder from Radio Eye. All the cables and connectors are regular TV coax cable found everywhere. Thanks for watching
Merci, j'ai decris le detecteur appelè un feedhorn . C'est un ancien detecteur utilisè pour les antennes paraboliques des annèes 90. C'est simplement un petit bout de cuivre avec un amplificateur attachè. Le signal en sort amplifier et a plus basse frequence 900mhz au lieu de 2000 ou 3000 ..
Yes there is plenty of tutorial online but I pretty much described in the video most of everything you need. part of the fun is also to figure out problem on your own too! Some things can only be learn through doing yourself, you`ll come out of the experience with a solid knowledge that will last you for life!
you`d have to scan a portion of the sky and record the radio intensity one section at the time . not impossible but long and tedious.. See how the thought emporium did it by scanning here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aeah3fFYlnA.html I have been thinking about it for a long time .
In the northern hemisphere you want the B0329+54 pulsar located at (J2000) RA 03h 32m 59.368s Dec +54d 34m 43.57s. In the southern hemisphere you want the Vela pulsar located at (J2000) RA 08h 35m 20.65525s Dec -45d 10m 35.1545s
How do the radio telescopes generate images of stars orbiting black holes.. it shouldn't be possible with the simple antenna you used just to detect if there is a signal or not
They use the same technic a lot more precise than my little set up. The resolution is infinitely higher than mine. Then they get a single picel data point one by one until they can get a complete picture. Its a very long painstakingly tedious process.
The images of the S stars orbiting the Milky Way’s black hole are taken with optical telescopes, not radio telescopes. Images of the black hole itself were done with multiple radio telescopes all over the planet combined together with interferometry to make one big virtual telescope the size of the Earth to achieve the angular resolution needed.
Hi! I wanna make radio telescope and have some questions. Would be glad if you answer. 1. How to determine diameter of antenna depending on what frequencies of radio waves I want to see. 2. How to measure angular resolution and area of the sky that telescope can observe at once.
Thank you for watching and for your question. I have already answered similar queries in the comments before...keep reading and you'll find the link to a software allowing you to calculate the size of your antenna's frequency best response . Also, i demonstrated in the video how to determine the size of your bean but you can always do a very simple search on google, there is all kinds of techniques and ways on how to go about that. So keep browsing my friend ! Happy listening!
living downtown in a big city doesnt help... what would you suggest as far as filtering out all the noise? I have a few old C/Ku-Band dishes and an itch to scratch.
Hello, how could I cite you in my own project? I don't want to do exidental plagiarism and I really value your project. It helped me a lot during building my own model of a radio telescope.
I have purchased my parents old house from the estate. There are a lot of tall trees to the east and west but I have had some luck with backyard astrophotography so far. There are not one but two 12' aluminum mesh satellite dishes (left over from the old c-band days) in the backyard... Would these dishes have value in a DIY Radioastronomy setup? Could they be used together and increase effectiveness?
12 feet ! Hell yeah they would ! You can even combine the signal and make an interferometer !!! That's really good stuff!!! Look it up and enjoy ! You can have a lot of fun!!! I am actually jealous!!! Please post pictures or video of the whole setup !!
@@Neptunium I did a quick video of the new backyard. I have a lot of work to do to remodel the house. The dishes are about 100 feet apart... Let me know what you think. I also need advice on whether or not I have enough sky to warrant a permanent visual observatory by the pond. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tzM39UxsUrI.html
@@Neptunium Darn... I tested the link and it works for me but I'm no RU-vidr. It's the only video in my channel as I just did it to show you. I value your opinion of what I would be able to do with this. Hope you can take a look there.
@@stringb2647 ok it worked ...yeah I see what you mean with these tall trees...it should nt matter too much at longer wavelength. Here is the catch these antenna get better gain at smaller wavelength. Right where the trees could be a problem...but I would still try because what you might loose in gain in one antenna, you'll gain it 10 fold if you combine the signals from both antennas . When they point in the same direction you'll have the equivalent resolution of a 100 foot dish!! So who cares about the trees!!!
Nice video. Just wondering...do you have any problems with noise? Don't radio telescopes normally have their first preamplifer cryogenically cooled (with liquid nitrogen or liquid helium) in order to keep the thermal noise down? Or does it not matter for certain types of measurements?
Thank you..yes there is background noise but I am not trying to detect crazy low and weak signals ... it's a proof of concept ! No I am not gonna dip it in LN2 for such a small dish ! Lol but the pros do your right
Hi there! I love the video but I have a few questions: Does the can size matter? Do you need the big dish? Is the driven element just half of the 21cm? Does it matter where abouts in the can you put the driven element? Thank you so much!
Hi! thank you for your interest.. yes the can size matter to some degree but for my purpose, it just happened to fit perfectly in the holder , The larger the dish the better , but a dish is only effective with higher frequency wave, it would be pointless to use a dish for VHF for example. the driven element is a quarter wave and it only matter as long as it is in or as close as possible to the focal point of the antenna . Happy holidays! stay safe
How can I connect with RASDR2 software or laptop pls make an video I am working on a project I am from middle class family so I can't afford so pls make a video and help me 🙏
Actually, I am not familiar with the RASDR2 at all but after a quick glance at the website, I don't see why it would be any different than any other SDR and software combo.. they all work the same way and it all come down to the type of connections for your coax cable . It really is that simple. No need for a video my friend, I am sure you are fully capable to connect a cable to an SDR module! Thanks for watching!
@@Neptunium In your video, 1. Does your ICom-7000 read 420 MHz or 4200 MHz? If the frequency is 420 MHz, are you using a RF mixer and RF signal generator to detect the 1420 MHz. 2. Your setup appears to utilize the C-band for detecting the black body radiation to find the beam size. Is this a correct assumption? (great idea). 3. Are you using the professional Radio Sky program? I’m using the free software recorder until I fully understand it and have used the software with my I-Com 725 rig to listen to sunspot noise and Jupiter’s electrical emissions. I also bought a SDR radio kit to run it daily instead of the I-Com rig, because of thunderstorms. 4. Did you buy your Mini circuit RF Amp from Amazon? Please advise. Thank you. Mike Simpson simpsonmichael1@hotmail.com
@@simpsonmichael45 thanks for your interest Mike! 1 the IC7000 does not reach 4ghz. It has a 1ghz addition button. When depressed the frequency displayed the digit after the 1 so 420 become 1420. That's just the way the screen was designed 2 yes ! Exactly! The frequency generator is part of the video. I show the response from the intensity about 3 minutes in or so 3 I thought I left the link in the description...if I forgot i apologize I'll do it shortly . This is the free chart recording that monitor the input from the mic through your sound card. 4 no ebay
If you can't scan the universe for new things, then what's the point? After you receive everything that other people have already discovered then what, you just stop? Convince me otherwise. I want to scan for new things from home. Not sure if that's possible
Some of us are just curious and want to do things for ourselves. You dont have to be the next Einstein or Edison.. A good technical challenge is just as rewarding. That way, you can acquire the experience and the know how other people only read about.. doing things gives you the deeper understanding the critical minds are made of...thats just my view on that, but we don't have to agree
@@Neptunium Oh absolutely agree. When I look through a telescope I am overjoyed when I see Mars, for example. My perspective is coming from being an amateur radio operator and having become accustomed to always be listening for new signals. So I was hoping that by having a microwave receiver (I have an Icom 9700) I could experiment and listen to far away things that are not just the sun and Jupiter. Your video was very informative! Loved it and learned alot. But is it possible to just listen and hear something besides the Sun and then analyze what it is? That would be more fun I think!
@@624radicalham ues it would...in that field i think it really comes down to the size of your antenna, mine is too small but i read some slightly bigger one can pick up pulsars , the "brighter " ones at least. I really wantes to try that but my antenna is way too small.
@@Neptunium Yes sure till now I was calculating by running some simulations. I would be great if send me the equation so that I can calculate it practical
@@shrirangsapate per wikipedia on the parabolic antenna page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_antenna beamwidth is KL/d with K a constant depends on the shape of the antenna 9about 70 for a typical dish) L=wavelengh d=diameter of the antenna you can also use this online calculator www.satsig.net/pointing/antenna-beamwidth-calculator.htm or this one www.everythingrf.com/rf-calculators/parabolic-reflector-antenna-gain or this one www.satellite-calculations.com/Satellite/gain_bw.htm good luck
As explained in the video, the passage of the sun in front of the focal point of the antenna generates plenty of noise, since we know the size of the solar discs and the speed of the earth rotation we can easily calculate the size of the beam, and I obtained very similar results with both methods .
@@Neptunium Are you referring to the distance to the sun? When you say solar disks, are you referring to the size of the sun in the sky say at 12 pm...then you could figure out the beam angle of the sun on the dish? Please advise.
Well who knows if after 3 years you still respond however I would be interested seeing a hybrid system, a radioastronomy combined with visual astronomy.
@@Neptunium I thank you for making this video, it seems less daunting then other videos on radio astronomy tho you didn't convert the data into images if I recall correctly you can convert radio astronomy data into images. that combined with visual astronomy overlaping each other would be very interesting. gonna watch out for your new stuff.
@@techno_viking2609 you are talking about delay doppler imaging and I was not set up for that in this video. Another way would be to simply map the radio signal strength and that's a different type of processing and set up. Usually takes a long time and is tedious . The thought Emporium has done that and "saveitforparts" too ...
What's the difference between this and AM radio 1420? I feel like AM radio signals would just overpower radio waves on earth but I'm no astronomer or radio guru
You can broadcast in frequency modulation, amplitude, side band, etc.. but you listen in whatever modulation that matches the signal you are picking up, if I am not mistaken, the carrier is assigned by the FCC . They dictate what frequency to use to limit interferences between station. In radio astronomy it doesn't make a difference since in this video at least I was looking at the total radio power . I usually set it on wide FM but I did use AM just to see if it would make a difference.. and it doesn't.
