Title: A Sensitivity and Array-configuration Study for Measuring the Power Spectrum of 21 cm Emission from Reionization PAPER will soon be performing long integrations to the power spectrum of high redshift Hydrogen. What is the best configuration? In the process of answering this question we also carefully (re) derive the relationship between the output of an […]
Publication: PAPER configuration and sensitivity Read More »
As a follow up to the E1P launch, here is a small album of images from my time at the Montana State Small Sat Lab . [alpine-phototile-for-picasa-and-google-plus src=”user_album” uid=”109170256040963038320″ ualb=”5843006019844642897″ imgl=”picasa” dl=”1″ dltext=”CompleteAlbum” style=”wall” row=”7″ num=”58″ size=”220″ curve=”1″ align=”left” max=”100″]
At the Montana State Space Science and Engineering Lab I helped (as Project Manager) students from rural Montana to design, build, and fly a reflight of the first US satellite, Explorer I which discovered the van Allen radiation belts. After 6 years of work and one failed rocket launch, E1P made it to space on 28
The Explorer I [PRIME] small satellite project Read More »
Here is a link to my PAPER thesis for posterity. It included a catalog, as well as studies of calibration stability and noise properties. I included a lot of extra information about the 32 antenna catalog that was cut from the original letter. Then, looking at 12 nights of data I found that despite high
My Doctoral Thesis Read More »
We’ve used data from April and September 2009 to make an image of the sky that covers 30000 square degrees. This is more than half of the entire sky! The results, including a list of the fluxes of known sources, are published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The data are also available here: PSA32 Healpix
Publication: First PAPER Catalog Read More »
Onward to 32! This month we added another shipment of 16 antenna to bring PAPER to 32 antennae. The arrangement of the antennae on the ground is very close to random, making geography tricky! I spent a good amount of time out there with the GPS pole and pack, marking out locations of antennae. We
PAPER 2010 Deployment Read More »
Adds some “essential” modules to CASA and the ability to install more via the casapython script. Currently adds the following modules: AIPY pyephem mpl_basemap pyfits vo.table setuptools psycopg2 Download: PAPERcasa-1.4.tar.bz2 18 Jul. 2012 PAPERcasa-1.3.tar.bz2 27 Feb. 2012 Installation: tar -xvf PAPERcasa-1.3.tar.bz2 cd PAPERcasa ./install_PAPERcasa.sh Usage: Install additional python libraries with: PAPERcasa/PAPERcasa_env.sh #required for packages that
Project: PAPERcasa Read More »
I’ve just returned from building the first 16 antenna section of PAPER in South Africa. The site is in the northern part of the country in the middle of the Karoo desert. With its brown sandy dirt and scrub brush the desert is much like middle New Mexico and felt just like home! Here is
PAPER 2009 Deployment Read More »
Classrooms are great but sometimes you can’t beat getting to pull the cord on a giant medieval trebuchet, push the button on a rocket or smash a teacher with a sledgehammer. I love showing people cool things and then letting them play. Here is the trebuchet I built with the New Mexico Tech physics club
Trebuchet outreach at New Mexico Tech! Read More »