In one of our future upgrades, we aim at diversifying the range of techniques used to observe the sky by adding a small Radio Telescope to our teaching facilities at the UCL Observatory at Mill Hill.
Modern astronomers make use of all available wavelengths, and from the ground, this includes radio. We aim at installing a 3m mesh antenna which will allow students to explore the technical elements and observational practice of radio astronomy via direct experience. This unit will be working at 1.42 GHz and will be able to measure radio emissions from the Sun, Jupiter, the Galactic plane and some of the brighter sources in our galactic neighbourhood, thereby learning and applying many other physical concepts which don't necessarily apply to visible wavelength astronomy.
The provider of this unit that we have in mind has installed dozens of such units in institutes around the world, allowing these to also form a wide network (similar to the world leading eVLBI (European Very Long Baseline Interferometry) in which institutes can cooperate by simultaneously observing astrophysical objects and sharing the data providing a true learning experience of scientific collaboration for undergraduate students.
Features:
Cross scan:
The tracking and goto precision of the SPIDER Radio Telescope's mount allows you to perfectly point to many radio astronomy sources listed in the RadioUniversePRO database. The automatic acquisition of Cross Scans allows you to perfectly sync on the radio source. study its emission and verify the SPIDER Radio Telescope's performance. In the example above, a Cross-Scan performed on the Sun.
Hydrogen line detection:
Hydrogen line detection Thanks to the high sensitivity of SPIDER Radio Telescope's H142-One receiver and the spectrograph module with 1024 channels. SPIDER Radio Telescopes allow you to record also the Hydrogen line at 1420 MHz frequency. In particular. the "on-off spectrum° (one of the advanced features of SPIDER Radio Telescopes and the RadioUniversePRO software) allows you to record signals from different sources (like the one from Cassiopeia A shown in the image above) and easily highlight the Hydrogen line. By recording data from the source radio ("on° position) and then calibrating it to a point in the sky away from the radio source ("off" position), the result is an on-off calibrated spectrum. The result is visible in the above image. you can see how the SPIDER Radio Telescope has perfectly highlighted the emission of the hydrogen line at 1420 MHz.
Radio Images:
The radio telescope is moved continuously by scanning the desired area of sky and records the radio emissions that come from each pixel to compose the image. Some pixels will record a number of different radio waves from adjacent pixels and these values are recorded as an emission. The computer can then associate each number with a color. and generate a radio image of the object! This radio map was recorded with SPIDER 300A pointed at Taurus A. the radio source in Taurus constellation that corresponds to the Crab Nebula (M1). The increase of the signal at the center of the map. corresponds to Taurus A position. the increase in the visible signal at the top right of the image is the Milky Way.
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