S.M.A.R.T.1.8

S.M.A.R.T. 1.8 Team

This project is a team effort and I am a part of it. The team constructed the telescope and we went to Kannur, India and took readings of the Annular Solar Eclipse 2019

Introduction and Inspiration

To understand the universe around us better we study it in different wavelengths. Some members of Astro Club, Fergusson College , Pune did a Affordable Small Radio Telescope (ASRT) workshop, under which we turned a Tata Sky dish into a small radio telescope which is really small. That kind of telescope is not enough to study one of the major radio source around us The Sun. We figured if we have to study sun in more detail then we are going to need a much better dish antenna and that's how we started working on S.M.A.R.T 1.8

Our main aim was studying the sun in radio frequencies when it is being eclipsed by the sun. and 26 December 2019 Annular eclipse was visible from Kannur, Kerala, India. So the telescope needed to be portable. So the first phase was to construct the telescope such that it could be used for taking astronomical readings.

Testing the ASRT

Phase I

Refurbishing the telescope

We found a 1.8 meter dish. We cleaned the dish, repaired the existing mount. Constructed a AZ mount for telescope and calibrated it such that we can get the positional readings of astronomical objects. The precision is 1 deg azimuth and 5 deg altitude.

Then to collect data we used SDR sharp software to get frequency and gain received.