Radio Telescope Donated to School District
A radio telescope built from a kit developed by NASA has been donated to the Huntington School District by resident-parent Tom Mazzotta. The telescope can receive signals at about 20 MHz, allowing it to detect solar activity and even radio storms produced by IO, one of Jupiter’s moons located as far as 5.8 million miles from Earth depending on the orbits of the two planets.
“This kit is certainly not a toy, there is an entire community of amateur astronomers and researchers around the world who use this equipment to collect data every day,” Mr. Mazzotta wrote in a letter to the district. “Unfortunately, the novelty of this system has worn off with my own kids and it seems like an incredible waste for the radio to collect dust in my basement.”
Mr. Mazzotta and his son Luke built the telescope. “Basically, it’s a shortwave radio receiver connected to a 2x dipole antenna array,” explained Mr. Mazzotta in his letter. “While you can listen to observations using headphones, there is a software application designed for the system which graphs the energy levels of the received signal over time. This program also has the capability to both overlay data from other Radio Jove observatories around the world and broadcast your own observations via the internet.”
The donation includes the radio, antenna cabling and masts (electrical conduit tubing), software licenses and documentation. He said he “would also be happy” to spend a day at the school with faculty and students “to set everything up and test it.”
Trustees unanimously accepted the donation, which Assistant Superintendent David H. Grackin termed “very generous.” Details about the design and operation of the telescope can be found by logging onto http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html.
“To the best of my knowledge, this is the only telescope of its kind in the area and it would be wonderful if it could be incorporated into the science curriculum at our high school,” Mr. Mazzotta wrote in his letter.
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