At the time of its building within the Fifties, the Dwingeloo Radio Observatory was the biggest rotatable telescope on the earth with a dish diameter of 25 meters. It was rapidly overtaken within the rankings however was utilized by astronomers for many years till it slowly fell into disuse within the early 2000s. After a restoration undertaking the telescope is now a nationwide heritage web site within the Netherlands the place it’s also accessible to be used by radio amateurs. Recently this group was in a position to obtain alerts from Voyager 1.
Famously, Voyager 1 is the furthest artifical object from Earth, having been launched on a trajectory out of the photo voltaic system in 1977. As a results of distance and age, the alerts it sends out are extremely faint. The staff first needed to mount a brand new antenna to the dish, which was not initially designed for alerts on this frequency which added to the problem. They then wanted to make use of orbital predictions of the spacecraft with a view to goal the telescope and likewise make the proper changes to the acquired sign given that there’s important Doppler shift now as properly. But with that every one out of the way in which, the staff was efficiently in a position to obtain the Voyager 1 sign on this telescope.
Only just a few telescopes on the earth have ever been in a position to accomplish this feat, making it all of the extra spectacular. Normally Voyager 1 is acquired utilizing the Deep Space Network, a fleet of a lot bigger dishes stationed world wide and designed for these frequencies. But this staff is used to taking up distinctive challenges. They additionally decoded the primary ham radio station on the moon and made a radar picture of the moon utilizing LoRa.
Dwingeloo telescope receives alerts from Voyager 1
