This paper is an updated presentation by Skip Crilly K7ETI about the continuing SETI observation results we’re doing together. The DSES 60-foot dish antenna in Haswell and the 40-foot dish antenna at the Greenbank Observatory in West Virginia have been making simultaneous observations for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) since November 2017. A third antenna in New Hampshire was added for taking data in December 2019. Simultaneous observing by sites distant from each other helps filter out local radio frequency interference (RFI). Signals observed at each site can then more confidently be identified as non-Earth in origin. This presentation summarizes the results, with additional data from February and March 2020.
The article describes recent parallax studies, using Very Long Base Line Interferometry(VLBI) radio astronomy in Japan and North America, to more accurately determine the spiral structure of our Milky Way galaxy. The studies indicate also that the Sun is closer to the central plane of the Milky Way than previously thought.
These VLBI studies utilize natural MASERs that are produced by molecules of water and methyl alcohol in ionized regions just outside hot stars. Hot stars are always short lived, not lasting more than a few million years, because they rapidly burn through their nuclear fuel at their higher temperatures. They therefore are found close to their original location of birth. They are one of the features that define a galaxy’s spiral arms. And so to map the location of the hot star MASERS is a means to map the spiral structure of the galaxy. Radio astronomy VLBI enables angular position measurements to high resolution. The angular position measurements are used to measure the parallax over the course of a year, and therefore measure distance to more accuracy. The more accurate determination of angular position in the sky and distance therefore enables a more accurate mapping.
Bill Miller, Tony Bigbee, and I (Gary Agranat) served last month as judges at the 2020 Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair. The Fair was held at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs on Saturday February 22nd. Tony served as a general judge, representing the Fair. Bill and I served as special judges representing our radio telescope group, the Deep Space Exploration Society. The Fair is there to encourage students in grades 6 through 12 to explore and develop their interests in science and engineering. The Pikes Peak Regional Fair supports students from Elbert, El Paso, Park, and Teller County counties, whether they are in a school or home schooled.
About $8000 in prizes and special awards are given each year from the Fair and special groups like ours. The Fair prizes are divided into subject area categories, like physical sciences, plant sciences, environment, biomedicine, chemistry, and energy/transportation. There are overall Grand Prizes, and prizes in each of the High School and Junior High School Divisions. Students are also awarded invitations to the State Science Fair.
DSES was one of 43 organizations that sponsored special prizes. This year DSES sponsored 4 awards: 1st prizes and honorable mention awards, for both the Senior and Junior High School student categories. Our 1st prizes included an award of $50. This is our second year judging and sponsoring prizes.
DSES this year also supported a high school student, Xander Duvall, who is interested in astronomy and physics.
The DSES Judging and Prizes
Only about 60 students entered this year’s Science Fair, compared to about a hundred last year. Nonetheless, in our opinions, the projects were generally good and well-motivated. One could see the students’ hearts were in it. A number of projects were motivated with real concern for society. Many of the solutions were often quite innovative and truly pushing what had been done before. Even when the projects were not so far reaching, one could tell the students were trying things and learning from their experiences.
Bill and I decided on a 4-part grading system for judging. We wanted to keep this simple, straight forward and manageable, and meaningful. For each student we interviewed, we assigned a grade of 1 to 5 in each of these major areas:
How well they framed their problem
The quality of their data, which included quality of their testing and how they conducted their experiments.
The quality of their analysis, which included how thorough their work was and how well they were able to explain it.
The value added from their work: the general impact to society and science or engineering, and to their own development. A sub category of #4 included, if possible, the value added to the subject areas relevant to DSES work: i.e., astronomy, especially radio astronomy, and any of the engineering, computer, and science areas that enable that work, like data analysis and experimenting with antennas. Those topics are not necessarily easy to get into, and so we wanted to encourage and help young people get exposure to those topics.
We then used our grades as guides to holistically assess all of the students afterwards. In 5 to 10 minutes of interviewing each student, and looking at their work and presentations, it is a challenge to get an objective view of the full work. The quieter time afterwards gave us time to reflect more fully, and let impressions that were working in the background contribute and give us a fuller answer.
Our goal was to support the young people in developing their quality in all 4 of those areas. I think Bill and I were satisfied with the awards we decided on. There were many excellent projects and several of those were outstanding. We were special judges in our own defined special category. We couldn’t award to everyone that we thought worthy. But in our decisions, we indicated the strengths and qualities we wanted the young people to continue to develop for themselves. We interviewed 7 students in the Junior High School Division and 7 students in the Senior High School Division. We were impressed with and proud of all of the students we interviewed.
We decided on these awards:
Junior Outstanding: Naomi Kruse (6th grade) “I speak for the trees: Tree-ring analysis of pinus ponderosa to learn local climate history” . Naomi took slices from about 30 trees that were damaged in the Black Forest fire a few years ago. She systematically analyzed the tree rings and was able to correlate climate change well back into the 19th century.
Junior Honorable Mention: Sara Wilson (8th grade) “Mind your message”. Sara successfully developed a smart garage door opening system that can be operated simply with a home computer and not requiring a smart phone.
Senior Outstanding: Kathryn Kummel (11th grade) “Investigating the urban heat island phenomenon through modeling, satellite data, and on-site measurements”. Kathryn did a multi-faceted study. She examined LANDSAT data of Colorado Springs to get a broad view. She looked at mathematical modeling of temperature and heat response of different surfaces. She checked with measurements of her own. And she made sample roof surfaces to test which would best mitigate heat generation in an urban environment.
Senior Honorable Mention: Xander Duvall (9th grade) “Analysis of neutral hydrogen radio emissions in the Milky Way galactic plane”.
Xander was the student we supported. He had come to us just earlier this year. We discussed with him his interests and what we were doing. We only had enough time to provide him with some data, to try to analyze and understand. The data we gave him was from a drift scan with our 60-foot dish of the 21 cm HI hydrogen spectral signal, scanning across the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Xander was able to research the background and develop a sharp presentation with some good explanations and illustrations. We hope Xander will continue to explore and develop his experience with astronomy research. He got a good start, and there is potential for lots of good solid work. Meanwhile, Xander earned several other awards at the Fair: the NASA EARTH System Science Award, the Northrop Grumman Special Awards in Science and Engineering (Sr.Div.), and the Senior Division People’s Choice (which is a popular vote by everyone who attends the Fair).
Additional DSES members helped Xander, including Rich Russel in supporting him with the observational data.
Xander Duvall, a 9th grade student at the Thomas MacLaren School, with his presentation ‘‘Analysis of neutral hydrogen radio emissions in the MilkyWay galactic plane’’. With Gary Agranat and Bill Miller at the Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair.
These are the students we interviewed.
JA3) Ezra Voth [03:58] Measuring water flow through specific placements of rocks on varying inclinations to reduce soil attrition.
JA4) Naomi Kruse [03:49] I speak for the trees: Tree-ring analysis of pinus ponderosa to learn local climate history
JC1) Ava Connelly [01:48] ‘‘Electricity free emergency’’
JD1) Sara Wilson [06:06] ‘‘Mind your message’’
JD3) Aditya Gonella [06:50] :‘‘A hiker’s third eye’’
JD5) Shrey Rohilla [02:50] ‘‘Windmill wonders’’
JD7) Phoenix Doyle [02:42] ‘‘Electromagnetism’’
SA6) Hudson Kruse [06:15] ‘‘Searching for blunders: Discovering the relative factors which influence faulty thought process in chess”
SB5) Jesus Gil [01:21] ‘‘Durability of casein plastic’’
SD1) Steven Lewis [02:20] ‘‘Cyber security engineering for aircraft’’ (Using AI machine learning to counter vulnerability of aircraft ADS-B)
SD2) Gryphon Patlin & Zakery Snider [06:32] ‘‘A device to digitally assist and enhance perception’’
SD4) Xander Duvall [03:17] ‘‘Analysis of neutral hydrogen radio emissions in the Milky Way galactic plane’’
SD5) Axton Hiltion [00:30] ‘‘Mitigating the cost of expensive solar repair by shielding environmental effects’’
SE6) Kathryn Kummel [02:59] ‘‘Investigating the urban heat island phenomenon through modeling, satellite data, and on-site measurements’’
In the near future, Bill and I plan to meet over coffee and assess our lessons learned. We’ll think about how we did, our criteria, and what we want to do going forward for the next science fairs, for supporting the young people in developing their work, and in judging at the fairs.
The Science Fair has a website. Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair. There you can learn more details about the Fair and the awards. They also have a nicely done video that highlights the students with their presentations and the experience of participating in the Fair. https://vimeo.com/393350748 The times in brackets in our above list of the students we interviewed are when they appear with their presentations in the video.
This is 8th grade student Ava Connelly, one of the students we interviewed. Her project was to test the suitability and effectiveness of several heat sources that could provide a small heated space for a baby, independent of the power grid during emergencies. Or these could be used in developing countries. She cited data that the risk of Sudden Infant Death Disease is greater if the baby is not kept at safe temperature. Her result was that of the devices she tested, the USB hand warmer would work best (the power could come from a hand cranked USB power generator).
Participants: Rich Russel, Bob Haggart, Glenn Davis, Lewis Putnam, Bill Miller, and Gary Agranat.
Photos by Bill Miller and Gary Agranat.
We worked at the Plishner antenna site in Haswell on Saturday February 15, 2020. We had three projects:
Attempt at observing a circumpolar pulsar, utilizing the System 1 manual tracking system. (Rich Russel, Glenn Davis, Lewis Putnam).
Complete building and installing shelf space in the Communications (Operations) Trailer (Bob Haggard).
Repair of the 3-element Yagi ham radio antenna, to realign the three elements (Gary Agranat, Bill Miller, Bob Haggard).
1. The major task of the day was an attempt at a science observing run of a circumpolar pulsar. This is one of the brighter puslars in the sky. And being circumpolar, it is always above the horizon, though it can still get relatively low to the horizon. The observing technique required continually pointing a the celestial coordinates and integrating the signal for at least a half hour. By integrating over time, the random noise tends to cancel more, leaving the actual radio source signal the time to accumulate and sum to a higher level than the noise floor.
Science Lead Rich Russel (seated) and System 1 Lead Glenn Davis setting up the pulsar observations. Bill Miller, Lewis Putnam, Rich Russel, and Glenn Davis in the Communications Operations Trailer during the observation runs.The display for the System 1 manual tracking. The circles in the black field represent the antenna beam width for different frequencies. The large blue ring represents a 4 degree diameter beam width, and is for the 408 MHz feed currently being used for the pulsar observing. The inner yellow ring is 0.8 degrees in diameter, which is for our HI hydrogen observing at 1.4 GHz. The pink dot represents where the center of the beam is pointing. A star field map is projected on the background black field. The upper part of the display shows azimuth and elevation of the antenna, and its conversion to the celestial coordinates of Right Ascension and Declination at the current time.The signal strength across the frequency spectrum being observed. For pulsar observing, we cannot detect the pulsar signal itself in real time. We must integrate the signal over at least a half hour of observing. Then we process the signal, with an expected pulsar timing. That process averages out the background noise while adding the actual pulsar signal enough to elevate above the noise floor — in theory. The 60 foot dish antenna turning to aim at the pulsar.The 408 MHz antenna feed. Ray Unberecken has designed a base for the antenna feeds so that these can be easily swiveled out for service and changeout. Ray designed and built this feed.
2. Bob Haggart worked on completing the building of desk and shelf space in the Communications Operations Trailer. The additional space is actually important, as that gives us a means to organize and better utilize our work space, and not instead have items pile up randomly.
Bob HaggartNew desk and shelf space in the Communications Operations Trailer.New desk and shelf space in the Communications Operations Trailer. Note the addition of amenities, of microwave oven and coffee pots.
3. A third project was the repair of the front element of the 3-band Yagi ham radio antenna on the 40-foot tower. The front element had rotated slightly askew.
The front element of the 3-band Yagi ham radio antenna on the 40-foot tower rotated askew somehow. Fixing this was our third project undertaken this day.The tower was rotated down for service.Bill Miller aligning the front element. Also working on this were Gary and Bob. Bob utilized cable lengths to help ensure actual evenness. We also used squares and levels. Gary working on the antenna. The ladder was used to access and retighten the center supports at the mast. While the tower was down for the service, Bill reinforced the structural support for the 2-meter band vertical antenna on a side support from the tower.Gary raised the tower back up.The 50-foot tower almost at its vertical position.
After the tower was raised back to vertical position, Bill and Gary slightly rearranged the positioning of the 80 meter dipole that is supported from a pulley on the tower. The repositioning separated the dipole with better clearance from other nearby wires
We discovered that the Communications Trailer phone used for our 2-meter talk-in radio was transmitting but not receiving. Bill started to troubleshoot it.Bill photographing the dish antenna. Pikes Peak is visible in the distance, over a hundred miles away.Gary also photographed the dish antenna.The 60 foot antenna rotating back to its parking position after the observing runs.
Rich Russel processed the observation data, but the processing did not bring out the pulsar. Troubleshooting is a topic at the February Science Meeting. Meanwhile, the System 1 antenna pointing system worked well.
The group finished up the work well before sunset, so that traveling back with the sun setting was not a significant issue. We had good weather for this trip, for a winter day in February. Our temperature was in the 40s F, which was actually midler than the 30s in Colorado Springs. And our wind was light.
We have been monitoring the news about the apparent magnitude of the star Betelgeuse dimming during the past few months. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star in its late stages of stellar evolution. As such, it is expected to become a Type II supernova some time within the next 100,000 years. Its recent dimming has piqued interest that perhaps the star may soon become a supernova. If that were to happen, DSES is prepared to observe it immediately. We are keeping aware of notifications from the SNEWS (Supernova Early Warning System) network [https://snews.bnl.gov/], which would send an alert if indicator neutrinos were detected.
However, no current theory of supernova predicts that a star would first dim, as is being observed for Betelgeuse. And meanwhile several other physical factors are known to make Betelgeuse variable, although it has not been observed during historical times to dim as much as is being observed now.
Dr. Russel recognized that another possible physical mechanism that could cause the apparent dimming would be a dust cloud coming between the star and us along our line of sight. The cloud could be interstellar, or it could be a product of the star itself and close to the star. There is evidence for a possible cloud in existing VLA (Very Large Array) observational data, which we have available to analyze. In the imaging data, what could be an imaging artifact nonetheless shows structure, and could instead be an actual physical cloud. In the slides, Dr. Russel showed calculations of how the cloud would be expected to move if it is the culprit of the current dimming. At the meeting we developed a set of observational tests we can conduct to test our hypotheses about if there really is a cloud dimming Betelgeuse.
The second topic of discussion was about troubleshooting our attempted observing of a pulsar with our 60-foot dish antenna the previous weekend. The analysis produced no results. But there can be several possible reasons for the problem.
What we did think did work was the accurate pointing of the dish antenna with the System 1 software, to well within the beam width limits of the 408 MHz antenna feed.
The third topic was about the upcoming Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers Western Conference [http://www.radio-astronomy.org/node/323] in late March in Socorro, NM. DSES will be presenting several papers there.
The Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair was held the previous Saturday at UCCS. Bill Miller and Gary Agranat represented DSES as special judges. Tony Bigbee served as a general judge for the Fair. Bill and Gary awarded Outstanding and Honorable Mention awards in both the Junior and Senior High School categories. Bill presented the awards at the Fair’s awards ceremony, held the evening after the DSES science meeting. The Science Fair and the awards will be a topic of another post.
The attached PDF file is our set of minutes from the Technical Operations and Planning Meeting of February 10, 2020. Written by DSES Secretary Floyd Glick, with contribution by DSES President Bill Miller. Please click to read.
Three-telescope synchronized narrowband pulse observations, Report of Observations, December 2019
This is a presentation about our the latest SETI observation results. The DSES 60-foot dish antenna in Haswell and the 40-foot dish antenna at the Greenbank Observatory in West Virginia have been making simultaneous observations for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) since November 2017. Now a third antenna in New Hampshire has been added. Simultaneous observing by sites distant from each other helps filter out local radio frequency interference (RFI). Signals observed at each site can then more confidently be identified as non-Earth in origin. This presentation summarizes the results with the addition of the third New Hampshire antenna in December 2019. The presentation is written by Skip Crilly. It was revised February 2, 2020.
This autumn Dr. Richard Russel attended the Very Large Array (VLA) Imaging course in Socorro, New Mexico. The course taught how to take the data sets from multiple large interferometer antenna systems and produce images and science statistics.. This post presents the slides from the DSES Science Meeting on November 25, 2019. This is an update from Dr. Russel’s posts on the topic from October 19 and 31.
Dr. Russel also presents his September 2019 results of Hydrogen 21 cm (HI) drift scan measurements at his newly installed 9-foot dish antenna at his home in Colorado Springs.
Please click the link to view the illustrated pdf file:
As we do each third weekend of the month, we had a scheduled work day at our DSES Plishner radio astronomy antenna site in Haswell, Colorado. Our members who participated on this weekend were Steve Plock, Ed Corn, Ray Uberecken, and Gary Agranat. Work objectives were:
Completion of installing the antennas and cables on the new 50 foot ham radio antenna tower.
Servicing the 60-foot dish antenna feed.
We typically meet first at the Ellicott firehouse for carpooling, before heading to the Plishner site.
I will save discussion of the 60-foot antenna feed for the Engineering Meeting minutes. That work was done by Steve Plock and Ray Uberecken. In this post I will describe the work we completed for the 50 foot tower.
The 60-foot dish antenna was rotated to the service tower, to enable Steve to work at the feed point.
With the 60 foot dish antenna rotated to the service tower, Steve worked at the antenna feed.
For our 50-foot tower work, we installed a second vertical antenna for normal contacts on the 2-meter VHF band. This gives us a second 2-meter band capability, independent of our already existing 2-meter band talk-in radio. We then installed coax cables for both of the 2 meter band antennas on the tower.
We also serviced the 80 and 160 meter band dipole antennas that the tower supports: 1) We replaced some of the nylon rope that lifts the dipole antennas to their deployed positions. Previously we had connected shorter pieces of rope and knotted those together. But the knots stuck in the pulleys, and we therefore replaced those with longer sections of rope without knots. 2) We neatened the arrangement of the wire antennas supported by the tower.
Captions to the photos provide more detials of the work.
Ed and Gary lowered the 50-foot ham radio tower. A second VHF 2-meter band vertical antenna was added to the side of the tower, in addition to the VHF talk-in radio antenna placed last month at the top of the tower. And coax cables were added that feed both VHF antennas.The second VHF 2-meter band antenna was added here, at this upper location along the side of the tower. Two stand-off support arms were bolted to the tower. Then the antenna was connected to its mast, which fits from below as a sleeve fitting. And the mast was connected to the supports. The mast serves both for structural support and as a counterpoise. The tower raised up again.The tower supports these ham radio antennas.The tower supports the 160 meter band and 80 meter band dipole antennas by rope and pulley systems. The 160 meter antenna is oriented east-west, and the 80 meter antenna is oriented perpendicularly north-south.Ed’s work truck on site.
After we serviced the ham and radio astronomy antennas, Steve made us lunch by smoking beef sausage in the grill. That was served with coleslaw and potato salad. Gary also brewed coffee.
After the tower was raise back up, Gary operated on phone and FT8, using the tri-band Yagi on 15 and 20 meters, and using the 80 and 160 meter dipoles. (10 meters was tried also but with no results, likely due to the poor propagation conditions.) The operating was in part for fun, and in part to verify that the antennas we put back up functioned properly. They all functioned well.
After lunch I did some ham radio operating using the tri-band Yagi, and also the using the 80 and 160 meter dipoles. With the tri-bander, I first made a phone contact to Hawaii on 15 meters, before the bands got busy with the ARRL sweepstakes. Then I operated FT8: on 15 meters I mostly contacted South American stations (lots of Brazil), plus some US stations when they were there (including North Carolina and Montana). On 20 meters the band opened across the Pacific. We had many calls to us from Japan. Perhaps they saw our profile on QRZ, or perhaps they noticed our rare grid square. Also across the Pacific, we made two contacts with South Korea, one with mainland China, one with Indonesia, and one with Australia. The band became weaker for US and Canadian contacts, but we did have some of those too. I alternated going to 80 meters, and had a few more domestic contacts there. These were with our K0PRT station callsign. Later I also used my callsign, on 20, 80, and 160 meters. 160 meters had noise at the FT8 frequencies. But I went to the upper portion of that section of the band, which was just slightly better. I managed 4 contacts on 160 meters, to as far away as Kentucky. I would say our antennas were working well.
Within a few days we received a number of e QSL confirmation cards.
eQSL cards we received from our contacts. The callsigns starting with J and 7M are in Japan. The ones starting with PU are in Brazil. LU5 is in Argentina. CT1 is in Portugal. YF8 is in Indonesia. VA3 is in Ontario, Canada. The other callsigns are in the United States.The site at the end of the day.
Ray left after lunch. Ed and Steve left before sunset. Steve tested the range of the new talk in radio antenna on the tower as he and Ed drove home away from the site. We had good contact to as far away as Sugar City. At JRs in Ordway, we could hear each other, but Steve needed to turn off his squelch. And at that point there were some slight dropouts. But we could still communicate. That is a great improvement for our talk-in system. Gary stayed and operated the ham station until a little after dark, and then closed up and departed too.
To all Deep Space Exploration Society (DSES) Current and Former Members:
November marks the start of our 2020 membership dues drive. Our organization relies on annual membership dues to fund most all of the DSES projects at our Paul Plishner Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center near Haswell, CO. Annual dues for voting members, continues to be $50.00. For those who wish to be involved as non-voting members the price is $20.00. Annual elections of board members/officers will be in February. You must be current on your dues to vote in these elections.
You can pay your dues on the DSES web site (DSES.science) by credit card or PayPal to email: dsestm(at)gmail.com. You can also mail dues to the following addresses: DSES, 4164 Austin Bluffs Parkway, Box 562, Colorado Springs, CO 80916-0562. Your canceled check, Paypal receipt or credit receipt will be your acknowledgement of your dues paid. If you want a separate receipt signifying payment, please note that with your payment and I will mail you a receipt. PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR CURRENT MAILING ADDRESS, EMAIL ADDRESS AND CONTACT PHONE NUMBER. Let me know if you DO NOT want this info to be released to the general membership. I would like to pass this membership information containing email addresses and phone numbers out to all members. ” And don’t forget to review all the latest reports, work trips and science studies on the DSES.Science website to see all that the organization has accomplished with the help of your dues.”
If you have any questions concerning your membership status, please feel free to email, text, or call me.
