Project Abstract

The VIPER telescope was donated to Siena College and has been a work in progress for a few years now. VIPER is a radio telescope with two focal points. The primary dish refocuses the incoming radio waves to a secondary mirror which focuses the light to a fixed point on the telescope. During the summer of 2015, I worked on VIPER and mounted a signal receiver to the secondary focal point. The primary goal of this project is to reverse engineer the software that came along with the receiver in order to allow further improvements and customization of VIPER. As of right now the receiver can detect radio waves that have a wavelength of 22 cm. If we can understand and change the code, we can then alter the receiver so that it can detect other wavelengths and conduct various observations without being limited to specific sources. The secondary goal is to actually obtain a measurement with the receiver. The plotting software produces three different plots. One is power vs time, one is instantaneous power vs frequency, and the last is average power vs frequency. The sun is a source of 22cm light, however it is a continuous source as opposed to a discrete source. This causes the plot of the spectrum to increase continuously and in turn skews the plot of the average power vs frequency. We would like to observe a discrete source because the plot will remain constant and enable us to properly calibrate the receiver. I built a calibrating device during the same summer and it will be crucial to develop and implement a calibration technique for the receiver to ensure accurate data. A team at Union College has also built the same type of receiver and cross analysis of data can help in confirming that the VIPER telescope is at optimal functionality.