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Can Amateur Radio Astronomers Detect Quasars?

-- James | October 6, 2020

Question:

Is it possible for amateur radio astronomers to detect quasars with modest equipment? e.g. a 400 MHz yagi array? Several quasars are listed as having flux in the 10s of Janskys, while pulsars are detectable with similarly sized equipment with flux around 1/10th of that level.

-- James

Answer:

Yes, I believe that an amateur radio telescope can indeed detect a quasar, although I believe that the instrumentation needs to be pretty sophisticated. In 1986 just such a detection of a quasar at 178MHz by an amateur radio astronomer was made near Ottawa Canada. The instrument, though, was comprised of two parabolic cylinders which were 15m x 5m in area and separated by 180m in the east-west direction configured as an interferometer. There is a very nice compendium of information on amateur radio astronomy capabilities in the Radiosky Frequently Asked Questions About Radio Astronomy which includes a list of objects that an amateur radio telescope can detect.

-- Jeff Mangum

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