Amateur Radio Astronomy at the ASV

Presenter(s): Philip Costigan (Radio Astronomy Section Director – Astronomical Society of Victoria)

Affiliation(s): Astronomical Society of Victoria

Session details: Saturday, 2024-03-30 01:00:00, STAR

Abstract

The Astronomical Society of Victoria has had a Radio Astronomy Section since the late 1980’s. Back then we began a project to build a 4 metre steerable radio astronomy dish. Many years of trial and error working on the 4 metre dish eventually led to the project being abandoned. Some years later the ASV was gifted a “dark sky” property just north of Heathcote in Victoria by Leon Mow. The Radio Astronomy Section was allotted an area in the property, where a shipping container was placed for a laboratory to house our equipment. We appropriately called this the LMRO or Leon Mow Radio Observatory. Many projects started to spring up at LMRO, and as confidence built, our members started toying with the idea of attempting to build another radio astronomy dish. In 2012, our then section leader, Clint Jeffery, acquired an 8.5 meter dish from an amateur radio enthusiast who had great intentions but just couldn’t get around to it. We now had a dish. Nothing else. Just a dish. So began the project of building an 8.5 meter all steerable radio astronomy dish for the ASV. This talk will describe the steps involved in building this now operational telescope.

Biography

Philip Costigan has been a member of the Radio Astronomy Section of the ASV for over 12 years and participated in the design and build of our 8.5 Meter radio astronomy dish. Philip is an automation engineer of some 40 years and is currently the section director of the radio astronomy section for the ASV.