VIRGO: An open-source Spectrometer for Radio Astronomy

Radio Astronomy
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Hi all,

I just released VIRGO: An open-source Spectrometer for Radio Astronomy

VIRGO is an easy-to-use open-source spectrometer and radiometer based on Python and GNU Radio Companion (GRC) that is conveniently applicable to any radio telescope working with a GRC-supported software-defined radio (SDR). In addition to data acquisition, VIRGO also carries out automated analysis of the recorded samples, producing an averaged spectrum , a calibrated spectrum , a dynamic spectrum (waterfall) , as well as a time series (power vs time) plot.

PICTOR is also based on the VIRGO spectrometer.


You can download and install VIRGO here: https://github.com/0xCoto/VIRGO


As always, feedback and criticism is welcome and encouraged! :slight_smile:


Cheers,
Apostolos

Special thanks to Cees for his initial contributions to the software!

13 Likes
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I just added VIRGO to Awesome Space: https://github.com/orbitalindex/awesome-space#radio-astronomy

Thanks!

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@0xCoto,

This looks great. Do you have any suggestions for open source hardware to use with VIRGO? Not just the SDR, but the whole setup. Thanks!

Happy hacking,

Jeff

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Hi @jebba,

I’ve written a PDF discussing the construction of a radio telescope: https://pictortelescope.com/Building_your_very_first_Radio_Telescope.pdf

If you have any specific questions in particular, I am always happy to help!

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“Building your very first Radio Telescope”

That’s about the best intro document I’ve ever read. I don’t see a license on it though, I suggest what the Libre Space Foundation uses for documentation, the “Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0”

Thanks!

-Jeff

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Cheers! I’ve used the MIT License in the repository the PDF can be found: https://github.com/0xCoto/VIRGO/blob/master/LICENSE

The MIT License has actually got fewer/less-strict conditions and limitation compared to CC Attribution Share Alike 4.0, and as the author, I am okay with that.

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Nice to see you here @cantino! :slight_smile:

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It looks really cool! Thank you for sharing such a treasure!