itty bitty telescope

[woody52]

Originally Posted by woody52 http://www.iceinspace.com.au/vbiis/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=581520#post581520)
Hi the itty bitty telescope is radio telescope dish and i don;t know if i don;t understand the artical but it shows the web cam being attached to normal telescope
Len

[erick]

OK, Len, let's try to help here.

So it is a small radio telescope. From what I have read, it is moved by hand and the output signal is displayed on a meter from 0-100%. I'm also not clear if it is detecting in the radio frequencies or in the infra-red?

So what do you want to do? I can speculate a number of things - use the computer to move the dish in altitude and azimuth? Have sensors on the dish altitude and azimuth that tell a computer where it is pointing? Take the signal out into the computer? Have both pointing details and signal taken into a computer to collect signal data over a range of pointing directions?

All these things will be possible - not easy, nor cheap in every case, but possible.

Can you tell us a bit more, please. Have you made up the radio telescope and can detect signals?

[woody52]

Hi Erick thanks for repling to my post to anwser your question i havent made up the project yet because i dont have the metre i have the dish which is an old foxtell dish and have parts for the base i carn;t aford a lot of expensive parts all at once so did;nt buy metre until i found out if the computer was posible and what parts i needed
Thanks Len

[erick]

So it sounds like you want to take the output signal (displayed on the meter), into the computer?

[woody52]

Hi Erick im trying to get the metre output to show on the sceen as images if it can be done
Len ps it sounds like a good idea to as you said in controling it from the computer also

[erick]

OK Len, you now need some advice from the electronics/computer experts here.

There is probably a cheap device you can buy which will take in a voltage, transfer it as data into the computer via a USB port and have some software to display that and store it away.

Controlling the telescope is a bigger question. You would have to add motor drives to each axis, then could have some software that allows you to control those motors - $s and DIY needed.

Good luck. :)

[mill]

You can get an oscilloscope package for the computer where you can feed the signal to.
This you will be able to see on the monitor.
I think for proper analysis,you will need something different that will interpret the data for you.
This will cost $$.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi

Do you know what the "itty Bitty Radio Telescope" is. I googled it and found out. Look for "itty Bitty radio Telescope"

It is a simple device for picking up satellite TV signals. The outpt from the aerial needs to be connected to be connected to a device called a "Radio Master"

Barry

[robin_astro]

Hi Guys,

You might be interested in some experiments I did with something similar a couple of years back.
http://www.threehillsobservatory.co.uk/astro/radio_astronomy/radio_astronomy_1.htm
You can detect the microwaves from the black body spectrum of the sun and moon (and people if they stand in front of the dish) but I found it is not sensitive enough (the Ku band frequency is too high really) or stable enough to detect anything more distant.

Cheers
Robin