I am a Radio Astronomer. I design microwave amplifiers and peripheral componments for commercial, military and the scientific community. I have done most of my radio astronomy observations in the Hydrogen continuum (1.35-1.42GHz). I am currently inventing a solar attenuator. This is a ferrite device that is placed over the feed of a deep space radio telescope to enable it to look at the sun (without frying the front end). An array of radio telescopes pointed at the sun will be able to make extremely high quality 3D images of solar events (without launching satellites such as SOHO). I do most of my work as a visiting scientist at the Greenbank National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in West Virginia, USA. I use the smaller 40 foot scope that is situated next to the 140 foot scope where Frank Drake started his SETI work. My first (alpha) solar attenuator worked as expected in 2002. I am finishing up an improved beta unit to be tested on the 40 foot scope at Greenbank.
Thank you very much and have a great day, no matter what planet you are on!
Stephen Jensen
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
1. I run SETI because I firmly believe in the Drake Equation. I also think SETI is fun and you might as well make some use of your computer while it is up and running instead of having some moronic screen saver that accomplishes nothing!
2. Who knows if or when we will find anything? I do know projects like ALPHA at Arecibo are advancing the art of receiver design. I also can't wait to see what the Allen Array is capable of. We won't find anything if we don't look. We also need to be sending some decent signals also.
3. Have the mose efficient screensaver that is written in the fastest code so it will do the fastest programming ........ wasn't that the first SETI screensaver?
4. You have got to go down and see Arecibo - the size is quite unbelievable! Greenbank isn't bad either; they have a new visitors center there. Thank you very much!
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.
