Category: Science

Pike Peak Regional Science and Engineering Fair Judging Report

by: Bill Miller  Feb 24, 2024

On Saturday, February 24th the DSES team consisting of Floyd Glick, Dan Layne, Roger Oakey, and Bill Miller participate as special awards judges for the Pike Peak Regional Science and Engineering Fair.

We judged the senior and junior projects by splitting into two 2 man teams.  For relevance and time savings with so many projects to cover, we tried to judge only those projects that had some relevant aspect to what we do in the society involving, space science, radio, computers, engineering, energy, and other related areas.  

We planned to give a 1st and 2nd place award in both senior and junior divisions for a cash award in an amount decided by the DSES BOD and a certificate from the DSES.  However, in the senior group, we found one additional and unconventional research project for this age group and believe that it also deserves a special award, so we have added one additional award in a tie for senior division second place.

Here are the projects and award levels:

Senior 1st Place Special DSES Award:    SD 2 – Waste to Watts: Converting Locally Sourced Organic Waste into Activated Carbon Based Supercapacitors.  Shrey Rohilla,   Grade 11  The Classical Academy High School

Senior 2nd Place Special DSES Award:   SC 5 – Strength of EMF Waves Radiating from High Powered Electrical Lines.  Jessa Book  Grade 10,  Miami Yoder High School

Senior 2nd Place Special DSES Award:   SC 1 – Can Quasars create “dark” Stars using the Dark Matter they Absorb?   Rhianna Williams  Grade 12  Palmer High School 

Junior 1st Place Special DSES Award:   JD 2 – Shopcart 2050.  Advait Jadhav  Grade 7   Chinook Trail Middle School

Junior 2nd Place DSES Special Award:   JD 6 – Object Detection with Raspberry Pi to Help Blind Mobility  Angelina Won  Grade 7  Challenger Middle School

Deep Space Exploration Society Science Meeting Notes – October 24, 2022

Deep Space Exploration Society Science Meeting Notes – October 24, 2022, 6:30 PM.

By Bill Miller.

Please see the illustrated notes on this PDF file:

Deep Space Exploration Society Science Meeting Notes – October 24, 2022

Note, the most recent meeting videos are available here: DSES most recent Science Meeting video online

DSES Pulsar Observation Report #23: B1556 -44, November 1, 2022

Glenn Davis and Dan Layne made observations for pulsars at our Haswell antenna site this week, on Tuesday November 1, 2022. They successfully observed for the first time pulsar B1556 -44, making this the 23rd pulsar DSES has observed to date.

The PDF files in this post are their observation and data report, and an updated list of pulsars detected by DSES to date.

Congratulations to Glenn and Dan.

DSES Pulsar Observation Report-B1556-44, observation on 11-01-2022

DSES_PulsarCatalog_Nov3_2022.pdf

DSES Science Meeting Notes – October 25, 2021

These are the slides from our October 2021 Science Meeting. The meeting was hosted by our Science Lead Dan Layne.

http://dses.science/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DSES_ScienceMtg_Oct25_2021.pdf

Meeting topic highlights:

  • MeerKAT, South Africa, Precursor to SKA
  • DSES Science observation and related activities
  • 60-foot antenna feed schedule
  • HI (21 cm neutral hydrogen) Drift Scan with 1420 MHz Feed
  • Observing equipment notes
  • Interferometry Discussion

DSES Science Meeting, September 27, 2021

The September 2021 Science Meeting was hosted by our new DSES Science Lead, Dan Layne. Rich Russel, our outgoing Science Lead continues to be involved.

Meeting topics included “Pulsar Detection with Autopoly”, “Haswell 2-dish interferometer project”, and updates on servicing and improving the 60-foot
dish pointing and tracking.

The meeting slides are available here: http://dses.science/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DSES_ScienceMtg_Sep27_2021_AutoPoly.pdf

The video recording of the meeting is available here: www.bd-oculars.com/downloads/DSES_Eng_mtg.mp4

Thanks to Floyd Glick, Bill Miller, and Rich Russel for support for the meeting and recording.

DSES Science Meeting, May 24, 2021

We had our May DSES Science Meeting over Zoom. The meeting was led by Rich Russel, our DSES Science Lead. These are his presentation slides of the meeting. (The meeting was hosted and coordinated by Floyd Glick and Bill Miller.)

http://dses.science/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/DSES-Science-Meeting-5-24-2021-r2.pdf

We had 10 participants for this meeting. Some DSES business, work updates, and observing operations was discussed prior to the Science presenation part of the meeting.

Rich’s topic question for the evening was, why did the Event Horizon radio telescope group, who succeeded in 2019 to image a black hole for the first time, chose to observe the supermassive black hole in the active galaxy M87? To figure this out, we learned about what determines the physical size of a black hole, and its observable characteristics. And we learned about what determines the apparent angular resolution of an object in radio astronomy.

The meeting was recorded as a video mp4 file. We’re trying to transition to a new setup with Zoom. You can access the video of the meeting with this link. You can watch the first hour online. However, you can watch the whole meeting by going to the link and then downloading the video. You can then watch it as a video mp4 file.

2021-05-24 DSES Science Meeting.mp4 (dropbox.com)