CHART

About

Why Radio Astronomy?

Why it matters

Our experinces are based off of the sensory inputs that our bodies provide. Until recently, we have only been able to see the visible spectrum of the more broad electromagnetic spectrum.

E&M Spectrum

Electromagnetic Spectrum (credit NASA)

With advances in tehnology, we have been able to observe the whole electromagnetic spectrum which has allowed the field of astronomy to discover many parts of our universe that we were blind to before. Radio waves have frequencies from 300GHz to 3kHz, and are the lowest frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. These frequencies have proved to hold many gems in discovering what our universe really consists of. Some of these discoveries due to radio astronomy have been: the existance of the cosmic microwave background, pulsars, quasars, and radio galaxies. This is only a short introduction to the field of radio astronomy; If you would like to learn more about the field as a whole, please visit the links below for deeper insight into radio astronomy.

History of Radio Astronomy

Overview of Radio Astronomy

ASU's Low Frequency Cosmology Lab

Mission Statement

Why We Created This Project

We believe in the importance of making astronomy accessible to anyone that is interested; that the ability to discover more about our home, the universe, is a right and not a luxury; and that creating collaborative projects with diversity as a priority allows for greater advances in the field of science. The convergence of these ideas come together in the CHART project. Accessibility in our project is defined as affordability and ease in navigation. The CHART project guides novices and hobbyist alike in building their own radio telescope and taking data directly from the skies above at a price around $100. We have chosen every material used in this project carefully to insure low cost to the user and ease in locating that part over time. We have created step-by-step tutorials to build an optimized telescope and set up its hardware, so that the participants feel guided in completion of the project, rather than intimidated and discouraged. All of our code for this project is open source so that anyone can access and modify it for their personal subprojects and collaborative endeavors. Our main mission for this project is to empower participants from anywhere in the world to gain experience in the field of astronomy and increase diversity and participation in STEM.

Meet the Team

Ahlea

Ahlea Wright

Code Development & Telescope Design

Helped continue the CHART project in the summer of 2022 and worked on the final design of the telescope. Ahlea is an undergraduate student studying Computer Science and Bioinformatics at Winona State University. In the future, Ahlea wants to use technology to help others in the medical field.

Lindsey

Lindsey Arndt

Code Developement

Continued the CHART project during Summer 2022. Updated the website, tutorials, and created the GUI and database for taking and storing data. Lindsey is an undergraduate student studying Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, and Data science at Winona State University. Her future goals are to be a Software Engineer or User Experience Designer making technology more accessible.

Dylan

Dylan Gappa

Simulation

Dylan is using existing professional surveys to create a simulator for CHART. When completed, users will be able to create a mock data set to match when and where they observed. His future goals are to start a career in the civilian service of the military, working on aerospace technology.

Bryanna

Bryanna Gutierrez-Coatney

Project Leader

Oversaw the project during Summer 2019. Created the website, tutorials, and helped with telescope design. Bryanna is an undergraduate student studying Astrophysics at Arizona State University. Her future goals are to be an educator in STEM and to create educational platforms that allow science and astronomy access to the general public.

Shanika

Shanika Davis

Telescope Design

Helped design the radio telescope along with characterizing the hardware. Her future goals involve designing and building electronics that will operate on spacecraft such as rockets, satellites, rovers or other robotics.

Edgar

Edgar Escalante

Code Development & Telescope Design

Helped develop the code to retrieve and read data from the radio telescope during 2018 & 2019. Helped in research and development for the project's hardware. His future goals involve using his programming and signal processing experience to advance the field of astronomy.

Belany

Belany Zhang

Code Development & Telescope Design

Helped develop the code to retrieve data from the radio telescope, created first draft of the website, and also wrote some tutorials for setting up the software for the project in 2018. Her future goals involve pursuing a career in the Artifical Intelligence or Cyber Security field of Computer Science.

Emilie

Emilie Berthiaume

Code Development & Telescope Design

Helped start the CHART project in the summer of 2018 and worked on the initial programming and design of the telescope. Emilie is an undergraduate student studying mathematics and film at Arizona State University. Her future goals are to use media to increase public interest in science and math.

Libby

Libby Berkhout

Advisor and mentor

Libby is a PhD student at ASU. She advises undergraduates and is the main contact at ASU.

Adam

Adam Beardsley

Project Creator

Main adivisor and creator of the project. Adam is an assistant professor at Winona State University.

Visit Adam's Website

Completely Hackable Amateur Radio Telescope