I Can You Build Your Own Radio Telescope at Home?

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Building a homemade radio telescope is feasible, with resources available for enthusiasts, including a detailed overview article from Astronomy and a comprehensive 33-page PDF guide. The designs shared in the discussion highlight simple setups capable of observing celestial bodies like the Sun and the galactic plane. The Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) offers a community for sharing knowledge and experiences in radio astronomy. Additional resources and examples of DIY projects can be found through various links shared in the conversation. Engaging in this hobby can lead to exciting discoveries and personal observations of the radio sky.
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Likes davenn, DennisN and Vanadium 50
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Vanadium 50 said:
Is a homemade radio telescope realistic?
 
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I'm pretty sure my buddy up near Ottawa has a setup. I visited it last year.

Ah yes...

http://www.ccera.ca/files/budget_radio_telescope.pdf
"We show two slightly-different designs for a simple, small, effective, radio telescope capable of observing the Sun, and the galactic plane in both continuum and spectral modes, easily able to show the hydrogen line in various parts of the galactic plane."

https://www.radio-astronomy.org/?fb...RkmeMt0zllGkHYNAeuq1Jv8ojly6clzPEguIAFsrIGEWU
"The Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) is an international society of dedicated enthusiasts who teach, learn, trade technical information, and do their own observations of the radio sky."

http://www.ccera.ca/files/memos/
(Their published papers.)
 
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Is a homemade radio telescope realistic? There seems to be a confluence of multiple technologies that makes the situation better than when I was a wee lad: software-defined radio (SDR), the easy availability of satellite dishes, surveillance drives, and fast CPUs. Let's take a step back - it is trivial to see the sun in radio. An old analog TV, a set of "rabbit ears" antenna, and you're good to go. Point the antenna at the sun (i.e. the ears are perpendicular to it) and there is...
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