Open House #2 - SDD

Theme: RFI/Quiet Zone

Stellarium Demo

Telescope control, tracking, computing power and telescope mounts

3D-Slicer Demo

Data Visualization

Spectravue Demo

A demonstration of signals, astro-chemistry and RFI with audio equivalents

  • Intro - who am I
  • How does a signal look in a computer
    • Waves to voltages to numbers
    • Show sine plot
    • Show frequency display and discuss harmonics
  • What do astronomers 'listen' to?
    • Nothing, the computers do the listening; but what are they listening to?
    • Star 'notes'; more precisely the symphony of chemical spectrums
    • Show how notes signatures appear the same, but shifted
    • Show how changing the instrument changes the signature
    • Relate the signature to the fingerprints of various elements
    • Also show how understanding where the fingerprints are, relative to where they should be gives us information about relative motion of stars and galaxies.
  • Noisy signals and noise generators
    • Show a sine wave, then show a square wave
    • Point out the increase in harmonics
    • Point out that computers, cameras, anything digital is full of square-waves - that is why we are concerned about RFI
    • point out the shielded room.

Celestia Demo

Demonstration of the size of our Galaxy at various 'warp' speeds.

  • Intro -
  • Computers are fun, since they allow us to simulate things we can't actually do.
  • Star Trek and the Warp Number - speed = Warp^3 * speed of light
  • show demo

-- JoeBrandt - 25 Oct 2008
Topic revision: r1 - 2008-10-25, JoeBrandt
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