Detect Dark Matter's Mark from Your Backyard with a DIY Antenna
I built a simple radio telescope using roof flashing and a paint can to hunt for dark matter. By measuring the 1,420 MHz emissions from hydrogen clouds across the Milky Way, I can calculate their orbital speeds. If these speeds remain constant regardless of distance from the galactic center, it proves the existence of invisible mass holding our galaxy together.
If you're wondering what dark matter is, you're not alone. Astronomers don't know.
- gregdaniels421
It is nice that it seems doable for ~$200 USD, but the results aren't super encouraging, anyone know of a setup to get better results in a backyard setting?
- gus_massa
> Another shot at curve fitting in Excel brought these results closer to expectations, but they were still somewhat off.
Is the raw data available? It would be nice to see the fits and understand why they changed so much. [My unsupported guess is that you must not fit the bigger bump, but a smaller bump on the side.]
The graph has no error bars for the data of the author. I guess the vertical error bar are big...
> Experiments aiming my horn antenna at an Inmarsat geostationary satellite revealed that the angular resolution of my little radio telescope is about 20 degrees.
... and the horizontal error bars are huge.
> Fortunately, you only have to care about the cloud that’s receding the fastest—the one with the largest redshift, in astronomer-speak.
Is it possible to point the device to the other side and analyze the ones with the largest blueshift? This doubles the data points without additional hardware.
The last few are suspiciously accurate. I guess the author is adding the velocity of the Sun/Earth to the data. It would be nice to have that horizontal line in the graph too.