Radio Astronomy using a Differential Radiometer and Interferometer with an RTL-SDR

Amateur radio astronomer Marcus Leech often makes use of RTL-SDR dongles for his amateur radio astronomy experiments. Recently Marcus wrote a technical paper discussing a modern SDR implementation of a Dicke Radiometer, which is a type of radio telescope that is designed to significantly reduce the effects of receiver noise. Marcus has also developed an RTL-SDR approach to another similar system called the Phase-Switched Interferometer.

Using his new SDR based approach together with GNU Radio, a 10ft satellite dish and two RTL-SDR dongles he was able to plot a transit of the Milky Way Galaxy as shown below.