Cheap Radio Astronomy for Education and Public Outreach

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One thing that astronomers performing education and public outreach (EPO) sometimes struggle with is how to get the “wow” factor when doing presentations. Often times we have to do presentations during the day, so without a solar telescope, the best we can do is show a telescope without actually using it. That being said, we have access to a wealth of interactive computer technologies and demonstrations to get people (and kids) excited about astronomy.

Being a bit of a hardware tinkerer myself, I always love small and inexpensive projects that provide a BIG BANG for the buck.

Keep reading to learn how you can assemble the “Itty Bitty Telescope” for your outreach efforts.

Based on a quick survey of Radio Shack and eBay, you should be able to build the IBT for less than $100, maybe even less than $50, or even for free if you know people who can donate the required parts.

According to the NRAO instructions, (http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/epo/teachers/ittybitty/procedure.html), here are the parts you’ll need:

The assembly procedure (link shown above materials list) is pretty straight forward. I would suggest that if you aren’t comfortable using a hacksaw and soldering iron, find someone in your group or club who is. Aside from some minor soldering work though, the IBT is about as difficult to assemble as changing a tire on a car. (I know for some engineers, changing a spare tire is a daunting task, so YMMV).

Once you’ve assembled the IBT, now what? Well you can use the radio telescope as a demonstration of how such equipment works. You won’t really be able to do anything really scientific with the IBT, but you can demonstrate many of the key concepts of Radio Astronomy. Some examples of IBT learning objectives (courtesy of NRAO) are:

Remember earlier in the article when I mentioned you can’t do much with the IBT as far as science is concerned? Don’t fret! You can still do some neat things with the IBT that will excite your audience. For starters, the frequency range is 12,200 to 12,700 MHz. (Sadly not the 21 cm / 1420 Mhz of Hydrogen). However, the IBT CAN detect the sun, and it can also detect the body heat of a person standing near by.

Being able to point the IBT at a “cold” patch of the sky, and then watching the signal meter “jump” as you point the dish at the Sun makes for an effective radio astronomy demonstration. I see no mention of pointing the IBT at the Moon, so I’ll have to try it when I finish building mine.

So there you go! A great way to demonstrate radio astronomy without having to make a journey to the VLA. Now, if you have a 2-meter dish and a computer handy, you can start doing some scientific measurements with a “small radio telescope” (SRT), but that’s an article for another time…

Enjoy!

If you’d like to learn more about the “Itty Bitty Telescope” project, visit: http://www.gb.nrao.edu/epo/ibt.shtml

Detailed assembly instructions and EPO reference materials are available at: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/epo/teachers/ittybitty/

A great mini-lecture on radio astronomy can be downloaded at: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/epo/teachers/ittybitty/background.pdf

Source:NRAO

Ray Sanders is a Sci-Fi geek, astronomer and blogger. Currently researching variable stars at Arizona State University, he writes for Universe Today, The Planetary Society blog, and his own blog, Dear Astronomer