Search results for: job geheniau

Job’s Radio Telescope Observes Maser W3(OH)

Over the past few years we've seen a lot of interesting observations coming from Job's Radio Telescope, which is Job Geheniau's 1.5m dish connected to an RTL-SDR (with additional filters and LNAs). He has done things like mapped the galaxy via the Hydrogen line, observed red supergiant stars, imaged a supernova remnant, detected a Pulsar, and measured the basis for the dark matter hypothesis.

In his most recent work Job has managed to detect the W3 star forming region at the Hydroxyl (OH) frequency of 1665.405 MHz.

W3 is an enormous stellar nursery about 6200 light-years away in the Perseus Arm, one of the Milky Way galaxy's main spiral arms, that hosts both low- and high-mass star formation. - Source

Hydroxyl (OH) can be observed both in emission and absorption. Emission frequently manifests itself as maser emission which is of specific interest. Energy Levels of OH Diatomic molecules like OH have numerous energy levels as they not only have electronically excited levels, but they can also vibrate and rotate. Both rotation and vibration are quantized and give rise to the large number of levels. Because of the wealth of energy levels, OH can be observed at various wavelength in the optical, infrared and radio regime. - Source

Over on the RTL-SDR Facebook group (not affiliated with this blog), Job has described his experiment in more detail (link requires a Facebook account and membership). He writes: 

As you may know or not...., I have been busy the last few weeks trying to detect maser W3(OH) with my 1.5-1.9 dish. The W3 complex lies in a darkened part of the Perseus galactic arm, at a distance of ∼2.2 kpc, and is one of the most intensively studied star-forming regions in the Milky Way Galaxy. Quite a challenge! It looks like I have a hit now after all.

Adjusting the Feed, calibrating the position of the dish and a lot of trial and error and a lot of patience seem to be leading to a result after all.... For now, I will keep this as my W3(OH) registration at 1665.405 MHz. Taking into account the Vlsr of currently 17 km/s (speed of earth and rotation around the sun), the final result comes close to the correct measurement. 1665.789 MHz = -32.22 km/s. Vlsr according to my calculations in terms of location and time is 17 km/s. -32-17=49 km/s. I think and hope that -49 km/s is the correct velocity of W3(OH) also considering the reasonably clear peak in the measured values in the graph.

These W3(OH) results were done with a special 1665 bandpass filter and 2 mini circuits lna/s. I will keep measuring for a while in the coming days, but soon I will switch back to another Feed over, namely the now under construction 611 MHz Feed with associated bandpass filter to once again 'capture' pulsar B0329+54. My ultimate goal with this dish!

I was very close last six months, but after extensive research with fellow radio amateurs we unfortunately could not confirm with 100% (!) certainty that the pulsar was detected at 1420 MHz with the 1.9 dish.

Also that research continues with longer exposure times and now research at 611 MHz, there is still some soldering and drilling and sawing to be done..... But first things first. Glad with this result anyway. Takes a lot of perseverance and patience.

Job's Radio Telescope detects Maser W3(OH).
Job's Radio Telescope detects Maser W3(OH).
Job's Radio Telescope detects Maser W3(OH).
Job's Radio Telescope detects Maser W3(OH).

Job’s Radio Telescope: Hydrogen Line Northern Sky Survey with RTL-SDR

We've posted about Job Geheniau's RTL-SDR radio telescope a few times in the past [1] [2] [3], and every time his results improve. This time is no exception as he's created his highest resolution radio image of the Milky Way to date. We have uploaded his PDF file explaining the project here.

Job used the same hardware as his previous measurements, a 1.5 meter dish, with 2x LNA's, a band pass filter and an RTL-SDR. Over 72 days he used the drift scan technique to collect data in 5 degree increments. The result is a map of our Milky Way galaxy at the neutral Hydrogen frequency of 1420.405 MHz.

JRT - Northern sky Hydrogen Line Survey with RTL-SDR

This image is quite comparable to an image shown in a previous post which was created by Marcus Leech from CCERA who used a 1.8m dish and Airspy.

If you're interested in exploring our Galaxy with an RTL-SDR via Hydrogen Line reception, we have a simple tutorial available here. The ideas presented in the tutorial could be adapted to create an image similar to the above, although with lower resolution.

Pulsar B0329+54 Detected with a 1.9m Dish and RTL-SDR

Over the past few years Job Geheniau has been constantly surprising us with his amateur radio astronomy results coming from modest dish sizes and low cost SDR equipment like an RTL-SDR. We've seen him perform full sky hydrogen line surveys, measure galactic rotation, image the Cygnus star forming region, image the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, detect interstellar high velocity clouds and observe a red supergiant star.

Job's latest work has seen him detect Pulsar B0329+54 with his 1.9m dish and an RTL-SDR. He writes:

A pulsar is the rapidly spinning and pulsating remnant of an exploded star.

PSR B0329+54 is a pulsar approximately 3,460 light-years away in the constellation of Camelopardalis. It completes one rotation every 0.71452 seconds and is approximately 5 million years old

Everything indicates that I may have been able to detect the pulsar B0329+54 with JRT [Job's Radio Telescope]. This dish has a diameter of 1.9 meters, which would make it the first time (!) this pulsar has been detected with a dish of this size as far as I can tell. This result was obtained thanks to the good help and software of Michiel Klaassen.

Job has also provided a PDF file that documents his setup and results in more detail, which we have uploaded to our server here.

Detecting Interstellar High-Velocity Clouds with a Radio Telescope and an RTL-SDR

Over on Facebook Job Geheniau has recently described his success in detecting interstellar high-velocity clouds with his telescope consisting of a 1.8 meter dish, amplifiers, band pass filters, and an RTL-SDR.

High-velocity clouds or HVC's are areas of interstellar gas that are moving at very high velocities relative to that of the galactic rotation.

Job has been ticking off some amazing amateur radio astronomy milestone results recently with his radio telescope and RTL-SDR. So far he has managed to image the Cygnus star forming region, complete a Hydrogen line survey of the northern sky, measure the galactic rotational curve, and create a radio image of the milky way.

His latest post about detecting high velocity clouds reads:

 

CIII High Velocity Cloud detected with 1.8 meter JRT.

The receiver was a RTLSDR connected to some amplifiers, band pass filter and a 1.8 meter dish.

HIGH VELOCITY CLOUD CIII with JRT (Job’s Radio Telescope)

Wikipedia:
“High-velocity clouds (HVCs) are large collections of gas found throughout the galactic halo of the Milky Way. These clouds of gas can be massive in size, some on the order of millions of times the mass of the Sun and cover large portions of the sky. They have been observed in the Milky Way's halo and within other nearby galaxies.

HVCs are important to the understanding of galactic evolution because they account for a large amount of baryonic matter in the galactic halo. In addition, as these clouds fall into the disk of the galaxy, they add material that can form stars in addition to the dilute star forming material already present in the disk. This new material aids in maintaining the star formation rate (SFR) of the galaxy.

The origins of the HVCs are still in question. No one theory explains all of the HVCs in the galaxy. However, it is known that some HVCs are probably spawned by interactions between the Milky Way and satellite galaxies, such as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively) which produce a well-known complex of HVCs called the Magellanic Stream. Because of the various possible mechanisms that could potentially produce HVCs, there are still many questions surrounding HVCs for researchers to study.”

My detection:

For JRT the High Velocity Clouds are pretty hard to detect.

The Anti Center Complex is the easiest which I detected earlier last year.

This week I tried C III. It’s at Galactic Coordinates 120 50 and has a Vlsr of -140 km/s. You can find it on the chart:

In the simulation it looks like this:

Pay attention the low Brightness Temperature (0.3 Kelvin) compared for instance with Deneb (80 Kelvin)! Pretty hard to detect with my dish.

With JRT I did a 4 hour exposure (also 4 hours of Darks in the neighborhood) at 1420.405 MHz.

The new Feed I built is very good and has a perfect ‘pitch’ at gain 25 dB.

The final result for High Velocity Cloud CIII with my 1.8 meter dish:

 

Imaging the Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant with an RTL-SDR and Amateur Radio Telescope

Just a few days ago we posted about Job Geheniau's success at radio imaging the Cygnus-X star forming region at 1424 MHz with a 1.9m radio telescope, an RTL-SDR and some additional filtering and LNAs.

Now in his latest post on Facebook Geneniau has also shown that he has successfully imaged Cassiopeia A with the same equipment. Cassiopeia A is a supernova remnant known for being the "brightest extrasolar radio source in the sky at frequencies above 1 GHz" [Wikipedia]. Geheniau writes:

A new observation from JRT. These are driftscans of Cassiopeia A to make a radio plot. Several driftscans are made last week and combined. Always nice to see whats possible with a 1.5-1.9 meter dish. 2 LNA's and a bandpass filter, connected to a RTL-SDR at 1424 MHz. Happy that I got Cygnus complex and now Cassiopeia A which is the second radio source which is possible to receive with this dish.

The dish is fully remote controlled 50 km away.

Job Geheniau - The Netherlands

Cassiopeia A Radio Imaged with an RTL-SDR and 1.9m dish
Job's Radio Telescope

Imaging the Cygnus Star Forming Region with an RTL-SDR and Amateur Radio Telescope

Over on Facebook Job Geheniau has posted results from his latest radio astronomy experiment which involves imaging the Cygnus-X star forming region at 1424 MHz with a 1.9m radio telescope, an RTL-SDR and some additional filtering and LNAs. In the past we've posted about Geheniau's previous work which involved imaging the entire Milky Way at 1420 MHz, and measuring the basis for the dark matter hypothesis with a similar process and the same equipment. His latest post reads:

Cygnus-X is a massive star-forming region in the constellation Cygnus at a distance of 1.4 kiloparsecs (4600 light-years) from the Sun.

Cygnus-X has a size of 200 parsecs and contains the largest number of massive protostars and the largest stellar association within 2 kiloparsecs of the Sun. Cyg X is also associated with one of the largest molecular clouds known, with a mass of 3 million solar masses.
[Wikipedia]

The idea:
To take a radio picture of the Cygnus complex (Cygnus A + Cygnus X) with my 1.9 meter radio telescope.
Equipment:
1.5 - 1.9 meter radio telescope
Mini Circuits LNA ZX60-ULN33+
Bandpass filter 1200-1700 MHz
2nd LNA
RTL-SDR
VirgoSoft

Implementation:
Multiple 4-hour drift scans of the Cygnus complex and beyond.
In order not to be affected by HI at 1420 MHz, measurements were made at 1424 MHz. At this frequency there is Synchrotron radiation and no neutral hydrogen emission.
To be sure that no Milky Way synchrotron radiation is measured there would be no or hardly any measurable power change outside the Cygnus complex during the drift scan. This was also observed in these measurements and also confirmed earlier in test measurements.

A total of 7 drift scans of 4 hours were made at 1424 MHz. Because the start of the driftscan generates a lot of wrong data (the 'cooling down/warming up' of the RTL-SDR), this has been removed in the measurements.
The measurement starts at 2000 seconds and is always aborted at 12000 seconds in post-processing.

7 shots from RA 19 to RA 22. The declination varied each observation from DEC 36 to 43 degrees.

Because not every driftscan was perfect (heavy clouds gave worse results anyway as well as wind/rain or rfi) a total of 15 measurements were done, of which 7 were thus acceptable enough for editing.

In the end JRT performed measurements from 24 September to 9 October. Patience is a good thing.

Results:
By editing the driftscan data in Excel with Conditional Format (giving color to the data) the final result is a 'radio photo' of the complex.

Of course, in view of the dish diameter, the beam is 8 degrees and thus a somewhat rough image of the Cygnus complex is sketched here.

Job Geheniau - Netherlands.

Cygnus-X Imaged at 1424 MHz with an RTL-SDR based home radio telescope.

Using an RTL-SDR to Measure the Basis for the Dark Matter Hypothesis

From calculations depending on the distribution of visible star mass in our galaxy, a certain galactic rotational velocity vs distance from center curve is expected. However, when scientists actually measure the galactic rotation, another curve is found - a curve which should result in the galaxy flying apart. This mismatch in expected vs measured data has given rise to the theory of "dark matter". The theory essentially states that in order to get the measured curve, the galaxy must have more mass, and that this mass must come from non-luminous matter scattered amongst the galaxy which is difficult or impossible to observe.

In the past we have posted about Job Geheniau's radio astronomy projects a few times on this blog. So far he has used an RTL-SDR and radio telescope dish to generate a full radio image of the galaxy at the Hydrogen Line frequency of 1.42 GHz. This project worked by pointing the telescope at one section of the galaxy, measuring the total Hydrogen line power with the RTL-SDR over a number of minutes, then moving the telescope to the next section.

Job's Radio Telescope + Laptop and RTL-SDR Setup

Using the same hardware and techniques to observe the Hydrogen Line frequency, he was now able to measure the rotational curve of our galaxy. When the telescope points to different arms of the galaxy, the Hydrogen line measurement will be doppler shifted differently. The measured doppler shift can be used to figure out the rotational velocity of that particular arm of the galaxy. By measuring the rotational velocity from the center of the galaxy to the outer edges, a curve is created. Job's measured curve matches that seen by professional radio astronomers, confirming the mismatch in expected vs measured data.

Job's document explaining his setup and measurement procedure can be found here (pdf file).

Job's Measured vs Expected Curve

If you'd like to get started with Hydrogen line radio astronomy with an RTL-SDR, we have a tutorial over here.

Imaging the Milky Way in Neutral Hydrogen with an RTL-SDR Part 2

Last month we shared information about Job Geheniau's success with using an RTL-SDR dongle to image our galaxy in neutral Hydrogen. Our galaxy is full of neutral Hydrogen, and lots of neutral Hydrogen together results in a detectable radio peak at 1.42 GHz. This peak is called the Hydrogen line. By scanning the galaxy at the Hydrogen line frequency with a 1.5 meter dish on a motorized mount, an RTL-SDR, and a few filters and LNAs, Job is able to create a radio image of our galaxy.

In Job's previous attempt he created an image by pointing the dish antenna at 168 predefined grids calculated to cover the Milky Way, resulting in 168 points of exposure data. In his latest work Job has created an even higher resolution image by taking 903 points of exposure data. Each exposure took 150s and the total 903 exposures took 8 nights to record. Once all data was collected he uses the same process as before, which is to input all the Hydrogen line data into a standard 2D excel sheet, then use conditional formatting to create a heatmap which reveals the image. He then applies a blur and stretches the image into the Mollweide Cartographic which can represent the entire Universe in one image.

Job has shared with us his PDF where he documented his process and shares his images (note 16 MB PDF file). We also share his full resolution images below, just click to open. We think that these images are quite amazing and an excellent achievement for a backyard radio astronomer.

If you're interested in Hydrogen line radio astronomy we have a tutorial that will help you observe the Hydrogen line peak on a budget. The tutorial could be improved upon by motorizing the dish, allowing you to create images like the ones above. You might also be interested in a similar project by Marcus Leech who took 5 months of hydrogen line observations with an RTL-SDR in order to create an even higher resolution image.