Radio astronomers! Listen to your data! Enlist a new neural network to find new meaning. Or at least make something interesting. PAPER data sounded like a mid-century modern apocalypse computer thinking manicly out loud. HERA data sounds even weirder. The sounds you hear are the cross correlations between HERA antennas at 117MHz. The signal is …
Sometimes I use a dark theme in notebooks, email, and slack to reduce eyestrain. I’m probably not the only one who needs this mode to get through the day. A common problem is that some plots don’t show up right. This is accessibility issue which is is very easy to fix. Issue Description Using the …
Who owns the Moon? You stand in a temple on Vesta, in what direction is Mecca? Space technology can be used to launch intercontinental missiles and is therefor embargoed by all space-faring nations. Must everyone else invent it for themselves? How warped are people going to be out there? Really? Such are the imponderables to …
Observe the galactic 21cm hydrogen line yourself! Its easier than it ever was! You need a horn, some filters, an amplifier, and a software defined radio (SDR). The CHART* project puts students in the drivers seat to design and build. They have a quite nice design for a cardboard horn that does not require a …
We’re back testing the ECHO drone calibrator. This time at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array. OVRO is about 5 hours north of LA. The location is spectacular with the back side of the Sierras rising steeply to the west. The goal of this testing is to get more experience integrating with an …
The HERA-CAMPARE Astronomy Minority Partnership is a summer research program where California college students come do research at US HERA partner institutions. As part of this program we have a summer bootcamp to get everyone up to speed. This inaugural year was held at Cal-Poly Pomona home of the CHAMP program organizers. The curriculum with …
Starting this August I will be an Assistant Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration here at ASU! In my new role I will continue to do research in the LoCo Low frequency Cosmology group but also help the department continue to expand its cubesat and smallsat activities. In the near term this …
Just announced today, HERA has received a boost of $5.8M from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. This comes on top of the most recent $9.5M grant from the National Science Foundation. The NSF support provided for a core of 250 dishes and enough infrastructure to record from them. Support from the Moore foundation allows …
This weekend, in a burst of activity with lots of hard work by students from ASU and Embry Riddle, it almost looks like we have dish. We’ve added the primary support pipes and in a marathon session of angle grinding, cut all the mesh pieces. Next time we’ll be putting the rest of the supports and installing the mesh! Thanks …
Today progress on the Prescott HERA dish took the form of building the dish hub and rim. The hub is where all the dish supports (25′ pvc pipes) meet. The hub is made using concentric “sonotube” concrete forms in which are embedded 3″ plastic pipes set in a radial pattern. Its basically a giant tinker toy hub made of cement. At …
