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M. L. Cobb (Southeast Missouri State University and Custom Astronomical Support Services, Inc.)
The Small Radio Telescope (SRT) kit was designed by Haystack Observatory as part of their educational outreach effort. The SRT uses a custom designed FFT based radio spectrometer receiver with a controller to position a 2.3m dish to make various radio astronomy observations including the 21 cm spin flip line of atomic hydrogen. Because there is no sizable commercial market for a two dimensional mount for dishes of this size, finding an appropriate provider as been a recurring problem for the project. Originally, the kit used a modified motor mount from Kaultronics called the H180. Two of these motors were combined by a specially designed adaptor to allow motion in azimuth and elevation. When Kaultronics was bought out by California Amplifier they discontinued production of the H180. The next iteration used a compact unit called the alfa-spid which was made in Germany and imported through Canada. The alfa-spid was designed to point various ham radio antennas and proved problematic with 2.3m dishes.
Most recently the CASSI (Custom Astronomical Support Services, Inc.) corporation has designed and certified a robust Az/El mount capable of supporting dishes up to 12 feet (3.6m) with 100 MPH wind loads. This paper presents the design and operating characteristics of the new CASSI mount. The CASSI mount is now shipped with the SRT kit and should serve the project well for the foreseeable future.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://www.cassicorp.com. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.