• Introduction to RadioUniversePRO radio astronomy software for SPIDER radio telescopes

    RadioUniversePRO is the most advanced software ever developed for radio astronomy with compact radio telescopes: it gives you all the power to control the different components of your radio telescope with an immediate and easy-to-use interface. You do not have to worry about using different softwares, RadioUniversePRO is your intuitive control and data acquisition interfaces with the radio telescope. RadioUniversePRO is not sold separately and is supplied only with SPIDER radio telescopes.

  • Build a radio telescope

    Would you like for us to build a radio telescope at your location? Our team is able to ship to you and install one or more of our radio telescopes – here what you need to know beforehand.

  • The results of radio telescopes: spectra, cross-scans and radio maps

    What are the results you can record with a radio telescope? In this article you can see spectra, cross-scans and radio maps you can record with SPIDER radio telescopes. When we record a picture of an Universe object, we usually use a digital camera that has many pixels (typically several millions). This way, when we record the picture, the light we receive “lighten” many pixel at the same time and each pixel records light coming from different sky areas. But, when we use radio telescopes, we record the signal from a single area of the sky (only large professional radio telescopes may have more LNA units), just as if our camera had only one pixel.

  • Introduction to radio interferometry

    Radio interferometry is an advanced technique, developed by professional radio astronomers, that allows to use many smaller antennas instead of a too large one. In fact, when we think of a radio telescope, we imagine an instrument of enormous dimensions, equipped with a very large parabolic antenna that collects radio waves coming from space. By using many compact radio telescopes, radio interferometry improves results in radio astronomy research and allows the use of more affordable radio telescopes. For example, by using this technique the Event Horizon Telescope (an international collaboration of multiple radio telescopes from all over the world) recorded, in April 2019, the first radio map of a black hole inside the M87 galaxy, with an incredible resolution of 25 microarcseconds!

  • What is radio astronomy?

    Radio astronomy is a fascinating science and it studies the Universe by detecting radio emission from many objects like the Sun, the Milky way, planets, galaxies and nebulas. In this presentation Filippo Bradaschia, PrimaLuceLab president and co-founder, gives an overview on radio astronomy history and basic physics. Then he introduces the most important radio sources in the Universe and the SPIDER affordable radio telescopes developed by PrimaLuceLab with Radio2Space brand. These instruments allow any school, university, museum or science institute to make real radio astronomy with powerful but affordable, compact and easy to use radio telescopes.

  • The radio Sun

    The Sun is one of the strongest radio sources in the sky: if the part of the Sun emits more in the visible wavelengths is called photosphere, the radio frequencies born in the chromosphere and in the corona, the solar atmosphere. The solar surface has a temperature of about 6000K, and even if the gas at this temperature emits more wavelengths in the frequencies of visible and ultraviolet light, because of its proximity we can also record the radio emission.

  • Largest radio telescopes in the world

    Largest radio telescopes in the world are used by professional radio astronomers, and often you can also visit them. Radio telescopes are extraordinary instruments, equipped with giant parabolic antennas or other, designed to work as single instruments or as interferometers. They are used to study objects in the Universe in radio waves frequencies but often are also used for satellite communication or studies of Earth’s atmosphere. Here you have a list with some of the largest radio telescopes in the world and a brief description for each instrument.

  • Components of electromagnetic spectrum

    Is the world exactly as we see it? It is not so simple. For example, some animals, such as bees, can see parts of electromagnetic spectrum that we can not see (such as ultraviolet light or infrared): the world does not appear to them as to us. Our eyes are in fact sensitive to wavelengths between 400 and 700 nanometers (1 nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter). Instead electromagnetic spectrum is made up of many types of waves of which the visible is only a small area