Deep Space Exploration Society (DSES)

Pike Peak Regional Science and Engineering Fair Judging Report
Read about recent site visits Dec, Jan, Feb trips to the Plishner Radio Site

and hamfests DSES at Jan / Feb Hamfests
February 2024 Science Meeting

January 2024 Science Meeting
We are now on Groups.io please join if interested: DSES Groups.io
A new YouTube channel can be found here: Deep Space Exploration Society
A successful Open House was held on September 16th, read all about it here.
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For more information about us, you can email us at information(at)dses.science.

For our latest activities, see our DSES Posts, and see the News & Announcements column at the right of the page.

You can read our information brochure.

If you are interested, you can watch a DSES Open House video presentation by Bill Miller which highlights what we have done through 2020 (about 56 minutes).

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We receive support from Bottom Line Technologies, https://www.bltinc.com, who have provided funds for our antenna site Internet access. 

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Meeting Notice

We are currently conducting our engineering and science meetings online virtually.  Email announcements are sent to the members for each meeting. Meetings are also announced in our activities and news column at the right of the page.  If you would like information to participate, please contact us at our email address above.
 

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Introduction

The Deep Space Exploration Society is a Colorado based nonprofit organization dedicated to practical astronomy and space science education for students, the general public, and society members.

Our major project is restoring and operating a 60-foot dish antenna for radio astronomy and amateur radio experimenting.  The site is located in Kiowa County, in Colorado. Since 2009 our volunteer members have been working hard to restore and modernize the antenna and its support facilities.  In addition we support radio astronomy and amateur radio projects with smaller antennas.  And we support educational outreach.

ASTRONOMY

We accomplished our first successful scientific measurements of galactic neutral hydrogen (HI) at 1.4 GHz in August 2016.  In 2018 we began undertaking systematic neutral hydrogen measurements of our Milky Way galaxy.  Highlights of our current astronomical work include:

  • Higher resolution mapping of the Milky Way using the 1420 MHz HI hydrogen radio spectral line. 
  • 1420 MHz HI hydrogen Doppler shift measurements for galactic mass and position studies.
  • Detecting and measuring pulsars.
  • Using SpectraCyber and SDR receivers.
  • Publishing our work in  amateur radio astronomy journals. and participating in conferences.

A significant technical accomplishment is the development of computer-based control systems for accurately pointing the dish antenna to celestial coordinates.

We conduct other radio astronomy experiments, including:

  • Joint observations for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) with the 40-foot radio telescope dish antenna at the Greenbank Observatory in West Virginia
  • Radio science observations of Jupiter and its moon Io
  • Solar Wind Observations using the Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance Monitor (SID) at Very Low Frequencies (VLF)
  • Meteor Scatter

AMATEUR RADIO

Our Amateur Radio work includes:

  • Engineering design, building, and coding
  • EME Moon Bounce 
  • Tropospheric Scatter 
  • HF operating

OUTREACH

  • We host an Open House at our radio astronomy antenna site for the local communities each August, during the Perseid Meteor Shower. [Note in 2020, due to the Covid 19 pandemic, we did not hold an on-site open house.]
  • We have been sponsoring prizes and participating as judges in the Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair since 2019.
  • We are developing our ability and are actively starting to support student projects.
  • We give presentations to interested local groups about our work.

Membership

Membership in DSES runs from the start of each calendar year.    Dues are $50 / year for voting members and $20 / year for non-voting members.

Please see our Membership Page for more information and instructions on how to pay membership dues: Membership Information – Deep Space Exploration Society

You can donate or pay membership dues with this PayPal link. You can use a PayPal account or your credit card.

Last updated March 25, 2024.