Kaiser Wiki

The SMAll Radio Telescope (SMART) is a DIY millimeter/far IR telescope. Made by Alex in 2014, it is currently the only available radio telescope in the old observatory. (Something which we want to change soon.) It currently is being stored in the WLS storage room, across from the visitors center reception desk.

It is composed out of a simple tv dish and receiver and powered by 2 9V batteries. Because of this, it does not have the capability to scan or sweep a broad range of frequencies, but instead gives the bolometric flux of all the frequencies (10.7 - 12.74 GHz) that the LNB receives.

• Dish Size: 80 cm
• Dish Gain: 37.4 dB
• Resolution: 2º
• Wavelengths: 10.7 - 12.74 GHz [(smart_lnb.pdf)]
• Mount: Johan's equatorial mount

The telescope is basically a satellite TV dis with a satellite finder box as the intensity reader. This makes it a bit of a simple device which is not capable of doing any spectral analysis but can only “see” things in the aforementioned frequency range. However, this also makes it quite easy to use and understand, since the parts were meant to be used by the average layman.

All the controls to the telescope can be found on the back side of the dish, skillfully attached to it with pieces of wire.
The control panel has two boxes, two switches, one audiojack and one dial. The right box is the power box, which like the name suggests provides power to the telescope. It contains 2 9V batteries and can be switched on and off.\\
Please remember to swich the telescope off after use, the batteries last only a few hours.

The left box is the main equipment, and it contains the “flux bucket”. To make it work properly, one should turn the dial until the box gives a reading of 5/10 (halfway). He can then choose to either use the internal buzzer, a silent reader or a computer.

The sound can be turned on and off with the swich on top of the box, conveniently marked “Sound ON/OFF”. The buzzer is a good way to show how the readings change but can drive you insane after a few minutes. However, it is easy to forget to turn the telescope off when the sound is off. A simple way of checking if it works is waving your hand in front of the detector, or putting your mobile phone there. The black body radiation from your hand and the cellphone radiation will give a reading.

When using a computer, it is suggested to use the software package Spectrum Lab, which is a great and free fast Fourier transformer and gives very pretty lines. These lines represent the intensity of the flux and will shift with signal strength.

Finally the telescope is resting on a borrowed mount, and is screwed on with two in-bus screws.

• Make sure that the telescope is standing firmly. The feet of the mount have to be spread out fully, otherwise it will fall and Alex will be very sad.
• Point it in the general direction you want it to point at, and see if it is still stable.
• Check the screws, etc of the mount. Otherwise it can topple over.
• Turn on the telescope, and wave your hand in front of the detector to see if it works.
• Set the gain to 5/10.
• Turn on/off sound, plug it into a pc, etc. Choose how you want to observe and set it for that mode.
• Now aim for the target and have fun.
• DON'T forget to turn it off at the end.

• Currently the telescope gives a bit of a high signal though, so it maxes out very soon. This can be fixed by a pull down resistor and is something that Alex is working on.
• The receiver is not aligned with the dish, so pointing at something does not mean that that is what the detector is pointing at. This makes the telescope unusable for observation at the moment.

With the current setup it should be possible to sweep the sky and make a radio chart. This could be done with 2º and would give a similar image to the one below[(Kevin Woods)]. The only current problem with the project is time, as everything in the sky moves and pictures like these have to be made pixel by pixel.