Tuning In To Heavens: IISER Thiruvananthapuram Students Build Low Cost Radio Telescope

Bringing the window of Astrophysics at doorstep, a portable radio telescope has been designed and constructed by a team of students from College of Engineering in Thiruvananthapuram funded and supported by Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER). The telescope is perfect for pursuing amateur radio astronomy and consists of satellite antenna, a signal meter (satellite finder) and a microcontroller board. Costing around Rs.4000 the instrument is designed and developed by a six-member team, currently pursuing an integrated MS degree in Physics at the IISER.

The cost effective radio telescope can be used to determine the brightness temperature of the sun as 10,000 Kelvin with the aid of radio astronomy as a measure of received intensity, along with detection of Saturn and the galactic arm commonly known as the Milky Way. The young team assembled the telescope from affordable and easily accessible components to be implemented in schools for children and college graduates for creating awareness about radio astronomy.

People at high school level aren’t generally aware of how radio astronomy works. So if they are introduced to it at a young age, then they could learn more about it and benefit, remarked Devansh Agarwal, one of the members of team.

The team plans to introduce and promote the telescope to students of city schools on National Science Day which falls on February 28, as the aim of the project is to popularise radio astronomy in schools. The project is well on the mark to aid budding astronomers to closely observe the celestial bodies.

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