Me and a group of first year undergrads from my college are working on building a horn-antenna for radio astronomy similar to this http://rishi-patel.blogspot.in/2013/10/summary-of-horn-antenna-project.html.
How to analyse the raw samples from the RTL-SDR USB dongle receiver using Python. I know basic programming in python. is that enough to analyse the data? If not what additional courses should I learn ?
I would like to plot the rotation curve of galaxies and calculate the dark matter distribution. Is it possible using the horn-antenna?
Getting familiar with python should be your first step, play around with libraries like scilab ( http://www.scilab.org/ ), MatplotLib ( https://matplotlib.org/ ) and SciPy ( https://www.scipy.org/ ). Practice plotting data and go through the tutorials and documentation with each library. Choose the one you feel comfortable with, all are robust and established libraries for manipulating and projecting data in the sciences.
Beyond that, the team that built the project you linked used Pyrtlsdr ( https://github.com/roger-/pyrtlsdr ) a python wrapper for a driver to run RTL SDR's, this will allow you to connect to and control your receiver from within your python script. You then can configure the script to collect data from the receiver into your script's memory where you can plot it right away or save it to a file.
If saved in the right format, received data can then be opened using the programming language and environment of your choice. Python, when coupled with the above libraries provides a strong base for astrophysics data analysis but many in the industry also use C++ or FORTRAN and many others as their language of choice.
Using the above python driver wrapper you should be able to easily and quickly calibrate and test your antenna apparatus but similar driver tools may be available in a computer language you are more comfortable with.
Cool project! Reproducing the first detection of the 21 cm line by Ewen and Purcell in 1951.
But why re-invent the wheel, in software terms? CASA (https://casa.nrao.edu/ ) is the "industry standard" software for radio astronomy data analysis. Works on Linux and Mac OSX, with an iPython interface. And it's free.
Your horn antenna data could be analysed in CASA in the same way as "single dish" data - the only real difference is that a horn has poorer angular resolution (larger beamwidth) than a parabolic dish of the same collecting aperture.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychology
- Mental Processes
- Learning