Welcome to the ASSA Radio Astronomy Group Website

Radio Astronomy only differs from traditional optical astronomy in that their telescopes operate in the radio frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum where they can detect and collect data on natural radio emitting sources.

Although optical astronomers sometimes build their own telescope, it is not typical. However, the reverse can be said for the amateur Radio Astronomer as most, if not all the fun and challenge is in building custom equipment or modifying other equipment to do the job.

By using a number of radio receiving techniques, an astronomer has the opportunity for added mystery by making what is invisible to optical telescopes visible while listening to high energy interactions from distant celestial objects such as Pulsars or closer natural interactions within our earth’s magnetic field, solar flares and other interesting noises from radio storms on Jupiter.

Since radio waves penetrate dust, some radio astronomers can study regions of the sky that are not visible to conventional optical telescopes, such as the dust-shrouded regions where stars and planets are born, and the centre of our own Galaxy the Milky Way.

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." - Albert Einstein (1879–1955).