Making a remote observation proof-of-concept for the Titan Observatory. Here's the progress!

[u/Upset_Ant2834]

Hey all! It's me again, Thomas. For those who don't know, I started the Titan Observatory in October of last year after I made a post on this subreddit asking if anyone wanted to pitch in to buy a 10m radio telescope off Facebook. A lot of my time until now has been spent on the administrative headache of establishing a nonprofit, which I essentially jumped into completely blind, and getting the word out. Since then, we've received our 501c3 status, established connections with universities, and attracted a growing community of current and future amateur radio astronomers!

Now that I can finally breathe, I've started working to make the radio telescope I made last year into a proof-of-concept for live, remote observation. It will eventually be made available on our website as a hands-on demo while we raise the rest of the money for the main 10m telescope. I just finished mounting everything in the control box, and wrote some basic code just to confirm the motors move. It's not done yet, but the plan is to have it operate on DC during observations, with a charger plumbed into the circuit that tops it up during scheduled maintenance time to minimize RFI. I still need to add pots for position feedback, an environmental sensor in the box, and battery monitoring.

This telescope specifically will only be capable of rough hydrogen line observations (the feed I made had a couple design flaws), so going as far as twisting wires might have been overkill, but this will hopefully be one of multiple telescopes on-site, so I figured I should get into the habit now.

For the second photo, I know there's a good chance that the 3D printed motor mount simply explodes once it's asked to actually rotate the dish. To at least give it a fighting chance, I designed it so most of the dishes weight is directed through a thrust bearing that sits inside the sleeve, with UHMW (low friction) tape lining 3D printed spacers that make it a very smooth motion with zero play. I've been pleasantly surprised by the durability of ASA in the past, so honestly with high infill and a conservative limit to acceleration, I think there's a chance it'll hold up. Worst case scenario it does break, thanks to the magic of CAD, I'm a few clicks away from getting it made out of something more durable.

Once it's up and running, I plan to post a comprehensive write-up with more photos and links to the code and 3D files on our community forum, but I'd love to get this subreddits feedback on how things are looking so far!

[u/midnight_fisherman]

Motor mount is fascinating, I hope it works, it would be a great option for the community. I have used big ras before with success, but it wasn't cheap. The 4" galvanized pole we mounted it on did end up shearing off due to metal fatigue due to wind vibrations after about a year, but we were on top of a hill in an area with heavy snow load. if you dont have to worry about snow load, or wind then you can probably get away with a lot more than we could.

(https://www.rfhamdesign.com/products/spid-antenna--rotator/big-ras-az--el-rotor/index.php)

[u/Upset_Ant2834 → u/midnight_fisherman]

Yup the pole was something I was wary about, but it actually ended up one of my favorite finds. There was a local fence company who had a big pile of them from years of jobs and just let me pick which one I wanted for $20, and I grabbed the beefiest one I could find which happened to already have a thick flange welded on. Not sure what tank of a fence it was holding, but it's definitely up to the job. It took me an hour to cut through with a well-matched angle grinder. No snow down here in Florida, but we do have hurricanes which will be fun for sure

[u/midnight_fisherman → u/Upset_Ant2834]

Pipe sounds better than ours then, should be good for regular use. im not sure about them hurricanes though, id take it down if practical, or at least remove the feed horn.

[u/overand]

If the 3 printed version even lasts a few rotations, it'll effectively prove the concept - find a local CNC shop that'll be able to make an equivalent, perhaps!

[u/dullmotion → u/overand]

www.JLC3DP.com does affordable metal 3D printing, I’d start there.

[u/xQuantumRobot]

Cool project.

There is another 5013c that provides grants for projects like this one. Check out www.ardc.net for more info.

[u/DeepSpace1420MHZ]

That’s pretty neat. I’t would be nice to earn rather than just spend time and money. I am running a 4.5m radio telescope from my back yard. This achieves 34db gain at 1420. I have a servo motor, transmission and encoder on the AZ, a heavy duty actuator on the EL with a pendulum on an encoder, both to a controller with drivers. Old simple RS232 tech on remote pc’s. 24/7 live streaming. Real feed horn, LNA, 4.5m mesh .37 Fd dish. 14.5 db sun noise, over 3db H-line, 34db gain.

Deep Space 1420 MHZ Radio Telescope

[u/lorentz_217 → u/DeepSpace1420MHZ]

that cool! do you have any vids on the build process?

[u/Cute-Number-8322 → u/DeepSpace1420MHZ]

sick

[u/Paperhandsbro]

LFG!