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There are apparently not many reasonably priced radio telescopes available for the amateur users. I only could find a SPIDER 230C 2.3 meter diameter compact radio telescope, which costs ~10 k€. Reading the page, I don't get a good overview what kind of things I could "see" with a radio telescope that has a 2.3 meter antenna.

Is the instrument already a (semi-)professional one?

B--rian
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mmh
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2 Answers2

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Rather than looking for ready-made systems, take a look at projects. Right now, plenty of amateurs are using software defined radio coupled to various antennas for astronomy. Start here:

http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-for-budget-radio-astronomy/

And while it has nothing to do with imaging, there's plenty of radio astronomy that amateurs can do using simple (albeit sometimes large) antennas:

B--rian
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blamblambunny
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    There is a Mexican radio-astronomer with a podcast who contributed to the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast. He did discuss building one's own. I can't remember his name, but his podcast (or perhaps the one from Green Bank) might be very interesting to the OP. – IchabodE Jun 04 '15 at 20:00
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From my simplistic analysis, it's not good for much.

For comparison, the first radio telescope was 9 meters.

One of the favorite parts of the spectrum for radio telescopes is the water hole - 21 cm.

From my quick mental arithmetic, this dish would be able to resolve sources of 21 cm signals of they were about 5 degrees apart.

B--rian
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andy256
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