1st Report from the Radiotelescope in Irbene
by Honor Harger, August 7th, 01Our working progress so far has been to split into several small research groups who are using the dish to work on different projects:
1. Acoustic Observation Group
this group which is comprised of adam hyde, bob adrian, fee plumley, susan kennard, manu luksch, dj mukul, and others are concentrating on the acoustic possibilities of the satellite dish. they have mounted a microphone on the dish itself and are recording the sounds which are emanating from the area around the dish. in effect they are using the dish as a large ear which listens in to the ambient surrounds.
2. Galatic Observation Group
this group is comprised of derek holzer, honor harger, adam willetts, zita joyce, shane breaker, steve kovats, nina czegledy and others are using the dish to observe galatic objects. on monday 6 august the dish made two planetary observations of venus and jupiter. the radiation of these two planets is recorded as telemetry data onto a computer. though the frequency of the radiation is in the gigahertz range and is thus inaudible, special receivers can step down the frequencies to the audible range so that audio recordings can be made of the observations. audio recordings of venus and jupiter were made on monday. today observations of the sun and a quasar will be recorded.
3. Satellite Observation group
members of PACT systems - marko peljhan, aljosa abrahamsbe + borja jelic - have brought specialist receiving equipment wilth them from ljubljana slovenia. today they will hook up their own feed to the dish itself, and will attempt to observe 6 orbiting satellites. the satellite observations are part of the research which PACT systems are undertaking for projects such as makrolab and insular technologies.
other groups have formed to undertake practical tasks such as:
- the establishment of an internet connection and local area network to facilitate working process
- treating and processing audio recordings
