Category: Science Meetings

DSES Science Meeting Nov 23, 2020

Welcome to the DSES Science meeting 11/23/2020

2020-11-23 DSES Science Meeting Notes, by Bill Miller

We had 16 participants in the virtual science meeting today:  Thanks everyone for joining.

Participants: Dr. Rich Russel,  Ray Uberecken, Lewis Putman, Bob Haggart, Don Latham, Floyd Glick, Gary Agranat, Glenn Davis, Jay Wilson, Jon Ayers, Lauren Libby, Myron Babcock, Robert Sayers, Ted Cline. Jerry Espada, Bill Miller

Agenda and notes;

Also see the Zoom Video Recording for more detail:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/3mwT_OSBrUV6KMi8GTTrcFaiG77Jmuuke72Jk1zmmUDpSrO2nAY3jFx49_muRz5I.7GK8PFSy5Vs-kL4R?startTime=1606177717000

Agenda and notes:

  1. Myron’s Treasure’s Report Checking $1774.28. Savings $5742.15. We have 49 paid members.
  2. Science Fair: 
    • Bill spoke with Carol Bach the coordinator,  she replied, “The Pikes Peak Regional Science and Engineering Fair will be held virtually on February 20, 2021.  We are hoping that the Deep Space Exploration Society will again sponsor a special award or awards at the fair.  In addition, we are hoping you or another member of your group will consider being a special awards judge.  We will send you a code to unlock a showcase with digital displays that you can view.  Virtual judging will take place between February 18-20, 2021.”
    • Bill to send board DSES Special awards criteria for approval.
    • “Please respond by December 2, 2020 to this email and confirm that your organization is planning to participate. Also, please let us know the name and contact email for future communications.”
  3. Planet Walk:
    • Bill will write an endorsement letter and have the DSES Board modify and approve for Planet Walk Colorado Springs. See https://www.planetwalkcs.org/
  4. Arecibo Failure:
    • See Bob Haggard’s repost on the Arecibo Radio Telescope status.
  5. Rich presented the DSES Science part of the Meeting:  See all notes in the DSES Science Meeting Power Point. http://dses.science/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/DSES-Science-Meeting-11-23-20.pdf
  6. Ray
    • Problem with the 1296 feed last trip.  Took down the Feed amplifier and found that the unit was stuck in the transmit configuration again due to a failed FET in the Relay driver.  Fixed this and added more gate protection circuitry to solve the problem. 
    • Also had a bad diode and a bad cable that had to be corrected.
    • The FT-736R Keyer connection failed on last trip but Ray fixed it.
    • Tried CW EME but couldn’t hear the echo.
    • Did receive Rays Home Based beacon bounced off Pikes Peak and verified pointing so the receiver chain is working.
  7. Gary Underground K0PRT  bunker station summary report.
    • FT8,  PSK Reporter website showed our station was received on 40 meters during afternoon in CA and TX.
    • 15M operation was hot
    • Our rare grid square (DM88) attracted many Japanese stations
    • Vertical working well on 15 and 40 meters. 10 meters was tried and at least had good SWR, but band was dead.
    • Yagi was also working well to Japan
    • PSK reporter showed good coverage on 15 meters all around the Pacific Rim.
    • See more in Rich’s slides above
  8. Glenn says that Phil is working on an elevation tracking update that will need some onsite testing when ready.
  9. Much discussion about the SDR receivers, GNU SW and the computer power needed to run them.  See the meeting recording for too much detail to capture here.

DSES Science Meeting October 26, 2020

Welcome to the DSES Science meeting 10-26-2020

2020-10-26 DSES Science Meeting Notes:   by Bill Miller

We had 14 participants in the virtual science meeting today:  Thanks everyone for joining.

Participants: Dr. Rich Russel,  Ray Uberecken, Chad Carter N0ZMG, Don Lewis, Matt Mathews, Bob Haggart, Michael Nameika, Gary Agranat,  Jonathan Ayers,Floyd Glick, Don Latham, Myron Babcock, Ted Cline on Phone, Bill Miller

Also see the Zoom Video Recording for more detail:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/VGBjHU_8SX1oUIID9rfAETR6FDWU-AiO_jtXLBN5allYy37d8WWxX1-rcsEk_NwV.hIq6Lvmw397kui6R

Agenda and notes:

  1. Myron’s Treasure’s Report Checking $1756 Savings $5742.05  September electric Bill $90
  2. Rich:  See all notes in the DSES Science Meeting Power Point. DSES-Science-Meeting-10-26-20.pdf
  3. Ray
    • Problem with the 1296 MHz feed last weekend.  Took down the Feed amplifier and found the unit was stuck in the transmit configuration due to a failed FET in the Relay driver.  Fixed this and added a gate protection resistor to solve the problem. 
    • A second issue was discovered with one of the coaxial swivel joints that failed on the feed lines.  Will find a new swivel joint or alternate method of coupling the coax while allowing for the cable wrap.
    • See slide 4 of Rich’s slide presentation above.
  4. Gary EME report.
    • Ray has JT65 digital setup ready
      • Use WSJT 10.0 Program for EME.
    • On November 28 and 29th there will be another EME contest under nearly a full moon.
    • Nov 27 – 28 Moon Rise 3:19 PM  set at 5:03 AM
    • Nov 28  – Nov 29th Moon rise 3:47 PM to about 6:03 AM
    • We will benefit by organizing the operation trip, to utilize our time while the moon is overhead with multiple operators.
    • Morse code is simple and effective.  Can be done with the computer keyboard or with a keyer.
    • Simple protocol of multiple repeats on Call sign, signal report and acknowledgement should be followed.
    • Signals experience polarization rotation, we therefore circularly polarize our signal.
    • Operation on JT65C will be added.
    • Operating EME is an experience you won’t forget
  5. Astronomy at Hydrogen Line 1420.406 MHz:  See Rich’s PPT presentation page 6 to end.
  6. SARA “Radio Astronomy in a Box” costs about $250 and is a great platform for a science fair project. Rich has one for evaluation and will lend to a worthy student.
    • 2.4 G dish
    • Stellarium planetarium software
    • Can be used for science fair
    • Don’t download the SW, as it has a virus.
    • Rich has another source of virus free SW.
  7. We have a new student member, Michael Nameika who is a student at UCCS interested in Astrophysics and Radio Astronomy.  He has been working with Professor Floyd Glick at the PPCC observatory and with Steve Plock.  Welcome, Michael.
  8. Myron Babcock, DSES Treasurer, has received a very generous donation of a Yaesu FT-736R from  N6KN, Rocco Lardiere in California.   He also triple boxed the unit and paid the FedEx postage to ensure that it arrived in great shape.  This will make an excellent addition to our radio resources and backup to our high band EME and Tropo communication.  Thank you, Rocco.

DSES Science Meeting, August 24, 2020

These are the slides from our online Science meeting, on August 24, 2020. The meeting was hosted by our DSES Science Lead, Rich Russel,

http://dses.science/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/DSES-Science-Meeting-8-24-20.pdf

You can watch the video of our meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/x_1UIpbw2DNLQ8_q4xvyY4MhD4f1T6a81igfrqAPmk86FwFaBdR2MHJzIJSeeaTR?startTime=1598312047000

2020-07-27 DSES Science Meeting Notes

Welcome to the July DSES Science meeting 7/27/2020

2020-07-27 DSES Science Meeting Notes:                                                            by Bill Miller

We had 14 participants in the virtual science meeting today:  Thanks everyone for joining.

Participants: Dr. Rich Russel,  Ray Uberecken, Ted Cline, Jonathan Ayers, Ed Corn, Gary Agranat, Glenn Davis, Jim Madsen, Bob Haggart, Jon Richardson, Dave Schick, Don Latham, Tony Bigbee, Bill Miller

Agenda and notes; See the Zoom Recording for more detail: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/u50vfrXt12hJbKf341OCGbJmA8fIaaa80ylL-

  1. Discussion of needed policy on site installs and changes 
    1. We have had a number of site conflicts of late.  These have resulted in a lot of waisted installation and observation time and frustration as well as hard feelings between members and damage to the dish, and operations center.
    2. General Proposal:  I have often said that if you see something that needs improvement and you have the skill to do it, take it on and just do it.  We need to qualify that with a little more process. In order to improve the site, equipment and observation capability and move the organization forward we often need to make changes.  The Engineering meeting is where we coordinate and plan for these changes.  If not previously planned and you are on site and need to make a change to a significant system you must call the person who installed or last modified that system and discuss it with them prior to removing, modifying or replacing it. 
    3. Use the Engineering Meeting for what it was intended.
    4. Be considerate and helpful to each other.
    5. Communication and coordination of equipment changes should not be a problem and further conflicts will have to be dealt with.
    6. We will need to repair the damage.
    7. We all have a common goal to improve the facility and equipment.  Let’s not have these issues.  When in doubt, Ask.
  2. We will potentially have photographers on site Thursday or Saturday for comet picture opportunity.  Would like to have a member on site to give access and keep the photographers out of trouble. Any volunteers?
    1. Don Savage don.savage54 (at) gmail.com is coordinating 4 or 5 night sky photographers.
    2. We will have them sign a Liability Waver
  3. July-August Events:
    1. The SARA virtual Eastern Conference will be held on Saturday and Sunday the 1st and 2nd of August.   See the SARA web site for info and payment.
    2. Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is currently in the constellation of Ursa Major. The current Right Ascension is 11h 45m 40s and the Declination is +36° 12’ 10”
    3. Additional pulsar observations. Please post planned dates and attendance
    4. Additional SETI Observations. Please post planned dates and attendance.
    5. Open house is cancelled for CoVid19, but we may do a small member camp out if some members would be interested in that.
    6. We will also assemble a virtual Open House presentation for various usage such as public outreach, education, fundraising and general interest.
    7. The Perseids will peak on Aug 11-12. On these nights, the moon will be 47% full.
    8. The next dark sky moon phase is Aug 13th through Aug 21.
  4. Glenn gave an overview of what was done recently on the System 1 Automatic Tracking HW and SW.  New features include:
    1. Automatic Tracking
    2. RA and Dec track automatically
    3. Az/El position command
    4. Track Moon Command
    5. Stow command

Tracking stayed within the bore site during the whole 5 hr. evening session.

Need to do more training, Glenn and his wife will go to the site tomorrow and draw up a training presentation and checklist.

Needs:

  1.  Sun exclusion track but there is a pop up on the screen that you are in the sun exclusion area.
  2. It would be nice to have a Raster Scan capability to map Object Hi Emissions and to help pointing accuracy.
  3. Rich provided his presentation on Pulsar, Fast Radio Burst and other experiments and observation we can do.

5. Rich gave high praise and kudos to the System 1 team to get a very high quality tracking and control complete. Very clean system design and implementation from Glenn Davis, Lewis Putnam and Phil Gage.  Much praise.

Discussion/presentation on Pulsar and other science topics from Dr. Richard Russel

See the attached presentation: http://dses.science/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/DSES-Science-Meeting-7-27-20.pdf

See the Zoom recording for more detail.

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/u50vfrXt12hJbKf341OCGbJmA8fIaaa80ylL-aUKzx2QbQXjO1w8ndJvEt-SL86-

DSES Science Meeting June 22, 2020

2020-06-22 DSES Science Meeting
Notes by Bill Miller.
Science Presentation by Dr. Rich Russel.

Participants:

We had 19 participants in the virtual science meeting, a new record.

Dr. Rich Russel, Ray Uberecken, Myron Babcock, Don Latham, Bascombe Wilson, Ted Cline, Jon Richardson KU4PEH, Ed Corn, Storm Quant (Kevin Shoemaker), Jay Wilson, Glenn Davis, Gary Agranat, Dave Molter, Dave Schick, Bob Haggart, Jim Madsen K3ILC, Bob Sayers, Tony Bigbee, Bill Miller

Preliminaries: 

Plishner site trip summary of 6-20-20:

Ray Uberecken , Bob Haggart and Bill Miller went to the Plishner site on Sat. June 20.  See notes in Site trip report.

Covid-19 Policy:

Once again, we want to remind everyone to read our policy on Covid-19 on the webpage concerning meeting and going to the site.  In summary; If you have had the virus or have had symptoms or been closely exposed to a positive person you should let us know and self-isolate from the group and others for 14 days and not meet of go to the site.

SARA east conference

Rich is the SARA east conference coordinator. The August conference is virtual and is $20 to participate on Sat-Sun Aug 1st and 2nd.

Rich’s science presentation on Pulsar detection:

http://dses.science/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/DSES-Science-Meeting-6-22-20.pdf

Much of the discussion was focused on understanding our pulsar observation and on what we can do improve our ability.

Zoom Meeting Recording
Date: Jun 22, 2020 05:08 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/5MlUEJfO0F5LXbPd2WvWeP4fRb-_eaa80SgYq6JYnhmJ9zhQ6vhRNDmHd4LZkX0- 

Password: 9x@t3pt*

Deep Space Exploration Society Science Meeting – May 25, 2020

Hosted online by Dr. Richard Russel.

The slides for the meeting are available here on PDF: http://dses.science/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/DSES-Science-Meeting-5-25-2020-r2.pdf

The link to the video of the meeting is at the end of this page.

*

Notes of the May 25, 2020 Science Meeting are by Bill Miller:

We had 12 participants in the virtual science meeting:

Dr. Rich Russel, Ray Uberecken, Myron Babcock, Ted Cline, Jon Richardson KU4PEH, Ed Corn, Gary Agranat, Bob Haggart, Jim Madsen K3ILC, Dave Molter, Bill Miller

Preliminaries: 

Rich thinks we need Internet service at the site for some of the experiments.

When Rich and Ray went down this last weekend the transformer at the gate had blown and they had to call in the power company to come fix it so didn’t get anything else done.   The power company came down, worked on it, and got it fixed.

Bill, we need to mention that everyone should read our policy on meeting and going to the site on the webpage.  If you have had the virus or have had symptoms or been exposed to a positive person you should self-isolate from the group and others for 14 days and not meet of go to the site.

Rich is the SARA east conference coordinator. The August conference is virtual and is $20 to participate. http://www.radio-astronomy.org/node/279

We were placed on the Neutron star group for the pulsar observation that Rich, Ray and Bob made several weeks ago. Rich thanks the rest of the group for all the hard work that got us to this point.

http://neutronstar.joataman.net/sites/dses/index.html

Rich’s presentation:

Rich gave his presentation on Pulsar B0329+54 observation, software setup and capture.

  • We had a lot of help from Steve Plock and Dr. Joe Martin (K5SO) to set up the SDR.
  • All the team members have put in a great deal of time and travel into the observatory to set up the feeds, cabling, power and control system to do this.
  • Ray, Bob and Rich were there for the first pulsar capture but everyone contributed.
  • Used the Ettus Research USRP N210 receiver.
  • Used a specially configured Laptop with a 1TB drive, Linux and Presto SW.
  • Used the GNU SW by Dr. Joe Martin (K5SO).

The Presto SW  builds a .FIL file with the data and time stamp.

Initial trial runs in Feb and May had the gain set too high and was saturating the receiver.

The first thing to check is the signal level of the feed and amps on a spectrum analyzer.

The site has a lot of RFI at 408 MHz right where we would like to observe so have to move up from this.

Ray added a 20dB preamp at the trailer end of the feed line.

Will move this preamp to the antenna end to compensate for the coax loss and reduce noise.

Single frequency RFI signals are filtered out by the SW.

The manual tracking works really well.

The tracking is run on the control Laptop and the Presto SW is run on the Linux Laptop.

The Initial  .FIL file gave a 2 pulse display after folding the signal from several hours of data.

The Presto SW is at    www.cv.nrao.edu/~sransom/presto

The SW needs input of a very accurate pulsar period.  The doppler error in the period due to the rotation of the earth and its orbital velocity  and position in orbit, also modifies the perceived pulsar period. Need to have the pulsar period set out to 4 or 5 decimals for the SW to fold/stack the signals to a usable observation.

The new SW takes the data, time tags it with the GPS data and creates the .FIL file.

The data from the Presto program will give a signal strength vs time for a single pulse that can be plotted using excel.  This Pulsar has a W50, 50% of pulse height with width of 6.6 mSec

This pulsar is circumpolar so it can be acquired at any time of day.  We need to change the mount limits to better enable this tracking without having to stop and unwrap 360 degrees if near the stop.

Most of the other available pulsars are in the Milky Way and only visible at night at this time of year.

The Murmur SW http://i0naa.Altervista.org  is a good tool to find the pulsars

For low horizon pulsars with little access time, perhaps you could add the sample files from several days together to get more data and stacking strength to acquire the signal.

Scintillation is a problem that distorts the signal through the atmosphere so we need observations that are high in elevation and at the best times of day and night for atmospheric stability.

The next observing session is planned for coming Friday night or through Saturday.

We need to get at least 5 pulsars to get on the top of the neutron star list.

Jon asked,  “Where is the pulsar capability going?”

                Badge of honor and accomplishment.

                One of the difficult things we have the facility to do.

Finding a glitch in the pulsar.

There are guys that process pulsars daily and look for anomalies.

Ray has his new quick change feed on the dish.

We can do pulsars for several months and then do EME or can receive the beacon from the moon.

https://www.google.com/search?q=OE5JFL+beacon

With Rays quick change feed, we can switch back and forth.

We can do Skips SETI observations in between other work with simple change out of the feeds.

We need a group calendar or way to communicate on the web site to schedule site trips and who is going.  Need to find a way to do this.

The Zoom Meeting Recording can be found on my Drop Box link at:         

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l949mj9o2084nhs/AACnrJNys-jzNa-mwzSfG4eka?dl=0&preview=2020-05-25+Science+Meeting.mp4

Please forgive the first 5 minutes of setting up Zoom.

DSES Science Meeting, April 27, 2020

Meeting notes by Bill Miller, April 29, 2020.

We had 13 participants in the virtual science meeting:

Dr. Rich Russel, Ray Uberecken, Myron Babcock, Ted Cline, Bob Sayers, Jon Richardson, Jonathan Ayers, John R Kucypeh (sp), Xander Duvall, Tony Bigbee, Ed Corn, Gary Agranat, Bill Miller.

Ray gave a discussion of feed system modifications and plans fix the feed to enable Pulsar work.

Bill said we have to hold a virtual board meeting and elect officers from the board.  We also need to call the annual all members meeting.

Rich gave a presentation with slides (see below) on reduction and graphing of data sets from the  national observatories and Pulsar observations. He also discussed the data from his 9 foot dish and about how to understand the Hubble Galaxy and object classification nomenclature, such as MG0424+0435  where 0424 in the right ascension and +0435 is the declination.  He also discussed the gravitational lensing effect given by the gravity well of a foreground object bending the light  and radio emissions of a background object around it.  Prime examples of this are;  https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9856f/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_Cross  the Einstein Cross.  Rich gave data and discussion of the Betelgeuse dimming phenomenon and whether this may be preamble to the star going supernova.  While a supernova may be preceded by a few hours by an early warning detector of Neutrinos as Gary has outlined, it is unlikely that this is the cause of the dimming and Rich gave a discussion of his theory and simulation of a passing object shading Betelgeuse.

Xander Duval was in attendance and said that he had been invited to go to the state science fair when others dropped out.  At the Fair he won an award from Nasa on earth science systems and submitted his research paper to the Junior Humanities and Science symposium and scored another award in physical sciences there. We are happy that this worked out well and hope to help him with future work.

Bob Sayers has a 4 ft PVC Mag Loop antenna that he would like to give away.  This can be configured for use with a SuperSID setup.

Rich said that it can be used as part of the Astronomy League’s Silver/Gold certification for radio astronomy.  You need 5 projects, 2 of which you need to build yourself. Available projects are:

  1. SuperSID Monitor
  2. Radio Jupiter or Radio Jove
  3. Neutral Hydrogen (Hi) Measurement
  4. Meteor Scatter
  5. Itty-bitty Telescope

Jonathan Ayers has a paper up on the SARA Western Conference Proceedings.  Gary Agranat says check it out at http://dses.science/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/MitigateRFIinSCDriftScanDataPython.pdf [Python Program for Mitigating Radio Frequency Interference Observed in SpectraCyber Receiver Drift Scan Data Files, by J. Ayres]

Here is a drop box link to the meeting recording missing the first 10 minutes before I logged in.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2pqscwj7txr7d5p/AADq0yNlG2KI3ZZDE8lqfxEta?dl=0

These are the slides from our DSES Science Meeting, Monday evening April 27, 2020. Presented by Dr. Rich Russel. In PDF format.

DSES Science Meeting, April 27, 2020

DSES February 2020 Science Meeting

Our Deep Space Exploration Society Science Meeting was held on February 22, 2020, at the home of Dr. Richard Russel.

The Science Meeting had three major topics of discussion:

  • Betelgeuse dimming experiment
  • Pulsar Observation status
  • Latest DSES papers and presentation

These are the slides from the meeting, written by Dr. Russel: DSES-Feb-2020-Science-Meeting.pdf

Some additional background and details:

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.

May 2019 Science Meeting – Pulsars & Galactic Navigation

These are the slides from Dr. Richard Russel’s presentation at our May 2019 DSES Science Meeting.

Pulsar Galactic Navigation – DSES Science Meeting, May 2019

During the past year, Dr. Russel led us in measuring the Doppler shifts of galactic neutral hydrogen (HI). Building on his experience from navigation, he then developed his ideas on how to use HI Doppler shift measurements to navigate from star to star across galactic space.

This year we are undertaking measuring the pulse time of pulsars. Pulsars are understood to be the star remnants of supernova explosions. They become what are called neutron stars. The supernovas compress the stars tightly into enormous densities so that their matter become neutrons, and the stars are only about 7 miles in diameter. Due to the conservation of angular momentum, their spin increases very rapidly. The youngest rotate with periods of miliseconds. Their magnetic poles are often offset from their spin axes. Electrons spin rapidly along the outgoing magnetic field lines of the poles, producing synchrotron radiation, which in turn produce broad band radio signals. If a magnetic pole is oriented so that it points at Earth during the rotation, we receive a radio pulse, and maybe pulses at other wavelengths too. (That is how pulsars were first discovered during the late 1960s.)

The pulses are very regular. But the spin of the pulsars gradually lose energy and slow down over time too.

Dr. Russel took his ideas for navigation, and now he has developed a concept for doing interstellar navigation using pulsars as references. That’s what this slide set is about. He just submitted a paper on the topic to the journal of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers.

– ed. Gary Agranat

DSES Science Meeting – November 26, 2018

These are the presentations from our DSES Science Meeting on November 26, 2018.

Dr. Richard Russel reported on the latest results from the Milky Way galactic rotation rate observations of November 16.  Also, he compiled all of the observations of individual radio sources done with the 60-foot antenna with the Spectracyber 1420 MHz receiver.  He includes descriptions of the objects and photos, as well frequency plot observations.

DSES Science Meeting Dr Russel 11-26-18

 

Dayton Jones K6DJ talked with the group about Small Antenna Calibration at JPL.

Dayton Jones Science Meeting Presentation 11-26-18 DSES_ant_cal_v2