Single Dish Radio Astronomy: First Small Steps

First Small Steps

In 1932, Karl Jansky announced to the world in the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers [1], that while researching radio interference for Bell Labs, he had detected radio waves emanating from a cosmic source. Although professional astronomers were not interested in pursuing his discovery, Grote Reber, a radio engineer and amateur astronomer, was.

With this simple antenna, Karl Jansky detected three different sources of static: local thunderstorms, distant thunderstorms, and a steady hissing static, which turned out to be coming from the center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. (Image courtesy Bell Laboratories)

Grote Reber and his home-made radio telescope.
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(Image courtesy NRAO)

Realizing the significance of Jansky’s discovery and envisioning a new field of astronomy unfolding before him, Reber constructed a 32-foot wire-mesh parabolic antenna in his back yard in Wheaton, Illinois. Drawing entirely upon his own resources and building the antenna in his spare time, he completed his radio telescope in 1937 and began observations, once again in his spare time. Over the next decade he continued his studies, making the first observation of solar radio emission, completing the first radio map of our galaxy, and publishing two landmark papers on radio astronomy [2]. Reber’s first small steps led directly into the giant leap that was about to be taken by professional astronomers worldwide.

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