Seeing Satellites with DIY Microwave Camera

I converted a portable satellite antenna into a microwave imager or Ku band "camera". This small motorized dish scans around and records the signal strength to create a heat map of microwave radio energy. It's ideal for viewing satellites in geostationary orbit, finding RF leaks in a room, or creating images from reflected microwave energy.

The hardware I used is a Dish "Tailgater" antenna, the 2014 version with onboard USB A port. I've seen other version of this antenna with different (or no) USB port, but this is the one I was able to connect to my computer and control with serial port commands.

More information on this project is available on my website: https://saveitforparts.wordpress.com/2023/03/29/a-cheap-and-relatively-easy-microwave-imager-radiotelescope/

I've also put my code onto Github, free for anyone to use! https://github.com/saveitforparts/Tailgater-Microwave-Imaging
(If you do use my code, I would love to hear what you did with it!)

I would like to thank @forTodaysAdventure for helping with some Python code ideas.

I would also like to mention a similar project by @thethoughtemporium using custom hardware and a larger satellite dish. That video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeah3fFYlnA&t=36s

Professor James Aguirre has also imaged satellites with his Mini Radio Telescope (MRT) project, available here: https://github.com/UPennEoR/MiniRadioTelescope

I used the website https://sky.rogue.space/ to visualize orbits and satellite locations. (prior .space url had an issue, but this one seems to work).


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