![]() ![]() Due to an unwise decision by the United States Congress in 1972, we lost our funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support the Ohio Sky Survey this loss of funding also happened to several other universities as well. In 1973 the Big Ear radio telescope was converted from measuring the location and strength of wideband radio sources to a similar study of narrowband radio sources. Two of these Ohio Sky Survey radio sources were identified as the most distantly-known quasars at that time. Many of the Ohio radio sources were observed at other observatories to obtain more accurate positions and optical identifications were made for several of these. ![]() A total of nearly 20,000 radio sources were measured, about half of which had not been previously measured by any other radio telescope. Most of its operation was in the 21-cm radio band, in which the receiver covered an 8-MHz bandwidth from 1411 to 1419 MHz. Prior to 1973 the Big Ear radio telescope had been used to measure the location and strength of wideband radio sources this project was called the Ohio Sky Survey. Kraus (its designer, builder, and Director of the Ohio State University Radio Observatory (OSURO), and the history of discoveries at OSURO by going to the home page of our Big Ear website (at More information can be found about the structures of the "Big Ear", Dr. The Big Ear radio telescope was destroyed in 1998 by land developers who purchased the land on which the telescope was located from the Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, in order to convert a 9-hole golf course into an 18-hole course and to build aproximately 400 houses on the land that they had purchased. This feature was not available in 1977 so that it was not possible then to attempt to track or quickly reobserve any interesting signal.īelow is a diagram of the design of the Big Ear radio telescope showing the path that a typical incoming radio wave takes from the source to the flat reflector, then to the paraboloidal reflector, and then into the feed horns and electronics. Visible in front of the flat reflector is the movable set of feed horns on an east-west track see the photo to the right. It shows the paraboloidal reflector (mirror) to the left, the tiltable flat reflector (mirror) to the right, and the aluminum-covered ground plane in between.Įach of the above photos was taken in 1995, about 18 years after the occurrence of the "Wow!" signal. The photo to the left is a view looking almost due west. The paraboloidal (curved) reflector is in the foreground (furthest to the south) and the flat reflector is more in the background (furthest to the north). The aerial photo to the right shows a view looking north by northwest. Here is an aerial photo of the "Big Ear" radio telescope of the Ohio State University Radio Observatory looking approximately east by northeast. Note that a significant portion of this report is moderately to highly technical, and it must be so in order to completely describe the radio telescope and the signal. The majority of this report deals with the details of the radio telescope and the signal. Then, I will describe the characteristics of the "Wow!" signal. In this Introduction I will first describe briefly the "Big Ear" radio telescope. What have we learned about that signal over the past 30 years? Could it have come from an intelligent civilization beyond our solar system, or could it have been just an emission generated by some activity of our own civilization? Thus, at the time this article is being written it is near the 30th anniversary of the detection of that now famous radio source. Eastern Daylight Savings Time on August 15, 1977. The "Wow!" source radio emission entered the receiver of the Big Ear radio telescope at about 11:16 p.m. Speculations, Hypotheses, and Investigations.Summary of the "Wow!" Signal Parameters.Intermittency, Duration, and Modulation of Signal.In Which Horn Did Wow! Enter? Use of OY372 Data for Antenna Pattern Fits.Galactic Latitude and Galactic Longitude.Conversion of Right Ascension and Declination to Epoch 2000. ![]() Frequency (and the Corresponding Frequency of Observation) (Each entry is an internal link (bookmark) to that section.) To read the entire document in one sitting. Clicking on one takes you to the start of that section. (2).The entries in the Table of Contents below are links within this document (i.e., bookmarks). Each of the images in this report below is available in a larger version which may be viewed by clicking on the smaller version shown within the text. ![]()
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