It's a shame the title was so interesting, but not enough for a person to spend time write something about it in the body. Not just as a compare and contrast, but as a meaningful conveyance of the story and details. That's where a real article comes in - to be more than just an expansion of the original prompt.
Does anyone know if there is an official site/repo/page for this project somewhere with info about the actual design?
Very interesting project, I'd be interested in seeing their system architecture in more depth and what tricks they used to bring the unit cost down.
Another radio telescope project I saw a while ago """misused""" low cost universal GNSS receivers ICs (MAX2769) as their RF frontend, which I found to be novel since these chips operate in a weird performance regime of low resolution (1- or 2-bit output) but very high sensitivity.
Is the telescope design available anywhere for hobbyists to build? I can't seem to find anything in the article or in a separate search. I'd be interested in perhaps putting one of these together to do radio astronomy with my kids.
What an awesome story. Not too many stories about Aussies out there, but what Han brothers are doing with Unsloth in AI, and stories like this one, makes this fellow Aussie super proud!
Who in the world would have the expertise to operate one of these? In a “low resource” high school? The problem isn’t (just) having the equipment.
There are so few teachers with enough knowledge to engage. Well-resourced, highly motivated kids might be able to read on line, but that’s a real stretch for the rest.
If I understood correctly they mean that these uplifting stories end up not panning out and it’s more about publicity than accomplishing the thing. I’m genuinely curious about the kind of SDR that works for a price like this and how you fit it into a $500 BOM.
Does anyone know if there is an official site/repo/page for this project somewhere with info about the actual design?
Another radio telescope project I saw a while ago """misused""" low cost universal GNSS receivers ICs (MAX2769) as their RF frontend, which I found to be novel since these chips operate in a weird performance regime of low resolution (1- or 2-bit output) but very high sensitivity.
https://physicsopenlab.org/2020/10/10/a-simple-11-2-ghz-radi...
The HN discussion (2020) about this can be found there:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26078761
Who in the world would have the expertise to operate one of these? In a “low resource” high school? The problem isn’t (just) having the equipment.
There are so few teachers with enough knowledge to engage. Well-resourced, highly motivated kids might be able to read on line, but that’s a real stretch for the rest.