SPIDER 500A MarkII is the 5 meter diameter radio telescope designed to make 1420 MHz professional level radio astronomy accessible to everyone: universities, science institutes and museums or space agencies. It offers a large 5 meter diameter antenna to detect weaker signals with a better resolution and the large GS-400II tracking system that provides very high pointing and tracking precision. SPIDER 500A MarkII is designed to be shipped and installed all over the world!
Thanks to the new generation electronics and improved mechanics, SPIDER 500A MarkII is more sensitive, faster and more precise, thus allowing anyone to do real radio astronomy without the need to be a radio astronomer!
SPIDER 500A MarkII advanced radio telescope includes everything you need to make radio astronomy at 1420 MHz frequency. In this video you can see the various elements that make up the radio telescope: antenna, tracking system and pier which are installed outside; receiver and software that are installed in the control room.
The WEB500-5 parabolic antenna has been developed to get a powerful radio telescope, that, thanks to fine metallic mesh construction, provides a large collection surface with a low overall weight. Special rear supports maintain the rigidity of the whole parabolic antenna on the mount, avoiding any bending and ensuring the effectiveness of the pointing system. This also helps to maintain a perfect parabolic shape with a maximum error of less than lambda/20.
Developed specifically for SPIDER radio telescopes, the H-FEED feedhorn is designed for optimal illumination of the primary reflector, allowing for high gain while reducing side lobes and the spillover effect, thus obtaining the best possible performance from the 5 meter parabolic antenna. The feedhorn is designed to allow the reception of dual polarization with support for two professional Low Noise Amplifiers (LNA) for the 1420 MHz frequency. The feedhorn is positioned at the perfect point of focus of the antenna through a rigid structure with four supports to minimize obstruction, with a focusing device to precisely focus and maximize the performance of the entire radio telescope.
Radio astronomy can be performed during day or night time – even in cloudy conditions, since the 1420 MHz radio waves are not blocked by clouds. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, we designed the GS-400II weatherproof antenna tracking system allowing you to leave the SPIDER 500A MarkII radio telescope permanently installed outside. Equipped with N-ACU electronics (Next generation Antenna Control Unit) integrated in the tracking system, it offers target high resolution automatic frame and track, advanced remote control features, efficient monitoring and operational analysis of all components of the antenna tracking system. The GS-400II antenna tracking system has a 400 Kg load capacity and encoders with a read resolution of 0,0015°. It can also be equipped with a special electronic security system (optional) which “parks” the antenna pointed at the Zenith (the vertical position where it is safely locked) when the wind exceeds 50 Km/h, offering the lowest resistance to the wind.
The WEB500-5 antenna, for its large diameter, can generate a lot of force on the ground – When combined with the weight of the GS-400II antenna tracking system, a very stable and robust anchoring system is required. The C400-HEAVY pier offers all of these features, and is designed to keep the SPIDER 500A MarkII radio telescope permanently installed in the field on a concrete base that has to be prepared by the customer (an example of concrete base design is provided in the SPIDER user manual).
H142-One receiver has been specially developed together with Bologna INAF Institute of Radio Astronomy specifically for SPIDER radio telescopes. H142-One provides professional technologies used by radio astronomers for radio astronomy research in a scientifically certified and easy to use receiver, perfect even with compact size antennas: it’s a 1420 MHz superheterodyne type radiometer/spectrometer, double conversion (type UP/DOWN) with 50 MHz received instantaneous bandwidth (RF=1.395MHz-1.445MHz) and 14-bit analog to digital converter. The H142-One receiver has spectrometer with 1024 channels (61 KHz spectral resolution) that are displayed and processed in real time by the control software supplied with the radio telescope. Thanks to the high gain and the low electronic noise of this receiver, the SPIDER 500A MarkII radio telescope is able to record many radio sources of the Universe. The H142-One receiver can be installed on a 19″ rack but it can also be placed on a table close to the control computer. Thanks to two dedicated IF outputs, the H142-One radio astronomy receiver allows to even improve performances by adding the optional BKND-Pro professional backend making this the perfect instrument for educational and research institutions that want to create a radio astronomy program.
SPIDER 500A MarkII comes with RadioUniversePRO that is the most advanced software ever developed for real 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 interface with the radio telescope. It allows you to control the antenna position and acquisition parameters of the receiver. This way you cannot only record data coming from the sky (deleting eventual artificial signal interferences) but also transits or radio-images of radio sources in the sky you want to study. RadioUniversePRO lets you save recorded data in graphical format as visualized on the user interface but you can also save raw data in FITS format compatible with NASA FITS Viewer, this way you can quickly open and view their data and export them to process with other softwares. System requirements are Windows 10/11 (suggested: 64 bit version), screen resolution at least 1920 x 1080, RAM memory 4 GB (suggested: 8 GB), processor i3 (suggested: i5 or i7). RadioUniversePRO is not sold separately and is supplied only with SPIDER radio telescopes. If you want to know more about RadioUniversePRO radio astronomy software for SPIDER radio telescope, click here to read the article.
SPIDER 500A MarkII radio telescope is designed to be installed on a concrete base with an underground duct connecting the antenna to control room that the customer has to prepare before the installation (suggested design is provided in the SPIDER 500A MarkII user manual). The image below shows cables and connections that are needed to connect antenna external unit to the control room. Power and grounding systems are needed and they have to be provided by the customer.
SPIDER MarkII radio telescope is the result of 10 years in research by PrimaLuceLab engineering team that designs, develops, assembles and tests in-house all our radio telescopes. This way SPIDER MarkII radio telescopes provide unmatched performance by standard off-the-shelf antennas that are not designed for radio astronomy: better tracking and pointing precision, higher sensitivity, dedicated radio astronomy software, better engineering quality and great italian design!
Since we create SPIDER MarkII radio telescopes in our factory in Italy, you can take advantage of the direct relation with the us that are the real radio telescope manufacturer. Our pre-sale service can help you in everything you may need before your radio telescope order. Our post-sale support can provide you with updates for hardware and software products that we specifically develop for our radio telescopes. Our internal team of trained technicians is also able to install SPIDER MarkII at your location, all around the World!
