astro-virgo 3.0.0

A Versatile Spectrometer for Radio Astronomy

Virgo: A Versatile Spectrometer for Radio Astronomy

About Virgo

Virgo is an easy-to-use open-source spectrometer and radiometer based on Python and GNU Radio (GR) that is conveniently applicable to any radio telescope working with a GR-supported software-defined radio (SDR). In addition to data acquisition, Virgo also carries out automated analysis of the recorded samples, producing an averaged spectrum, a calibrated spectrum, a dynamic spectrum (waterfall), a time series (power vs time) and a total power distribution plot.

A list of GR-supported SDRs can be found here.

Key Features

• 4-tap weighted overlap-add (WOLA) Fourier transform spectrometer
• • Reduced FFT sidelobes
• Adjustable SDR parameters
• • Device arguments
• • RF Gain
• • IF Gain
• • BB Gain
• Header file
• • Observation parameters automatically passed to corresponding .header file
• • Includes logged MJD (at observation t₀)
• Spectral line support
• • Spectrum calibration
• • • y axis is automatically transformed to S:N units with line masking
• • Supports median operation for RFI mitigation on the frequency-domain (adjustable n-factor)
• • Adjustable f_rest for observation of any spectral line (not just HI)
• • Secondary axes for relative velocity automatically adjusted accordingly
• • Prevention against strong narrowband RFI rescaling subplot
• • The average spectra, calibration spectra and calibrated spectra are optionally saved as a csv file for further analysis
• Continuum support
• • Supports median operation for time-varying RFI mitigation (adjustable n-factor)
• • Total power distribution (histogram) displayed, both for raw and clean data
• • • Best Gaussian fits computed automatically
• • Prevention against strong short-duration RFI rescaling subplot
• • Time series optionally saved as a csv file for further analysis
• Dynamic spectrum (waterfall)
• • Optionally saved as a FITS file for further advanced/custom analysis
• Decibel support
• • Power units optionally displayed in dB
• Argument-parsing support
• Works directly via python virgo.py, or as a module (see below)

Example Usage

import virgo

# Define observation parameters
observation = {
    'dev_args': '',
    'rf_gain': 10,
    'if_gain': 20,
    'bb_gain': 20,
    'frequency': 1420e6,
    'bandwidth': 5e6,
    'channels': 2048,
    't_sample': 1,
    'duration': 60
}

# Data acquisition
virgo.observe(obs_parameters=observation, obs_file='observation.dat', start_in=0)

# Data analysis
virgo.plot(obs_parameters=observation, n=10, m=25, f_rest=1420.4057517667e6,
           dB=False, obs_file='observation.dat', cal_file='calibration.dat', waterfall_fits='obs.fits',
           spectra_csv='spectra.csv', power_csv='pwr.csv', plot_file='plot.png')

Telescopes based on the Virgo Spectrometer

• ISEC TLM-18 Telescope (18m)
• ACRO RT-320 (3.2m)
• SALSA Vale Telescope (2.3m) [potentially soon, but already tested]
• SALSA Brage Telescope (2.3m) [potentially soon, but already tested]
• JRT (1.9m)
• PICTOR Telescope (1.5m)
• NanoRT Telescope (15cm)
• and more!

Example Observation

Observation of galactic clouds of neutral hydrogen toward the constellation of Cygnus (α = 20h, δ = 40° , l = 77° , b = 3°), observed by the TLM-18 Telescope in New Jersey, U.S. with Virgo. The average spectrum (top left), the calibrated spectrum (top center), the dynamic spectrum (top right) and the time series along with the total power distribution (bottom) are all plotted by the software automatically.

Data Acquisition Flowgraph

Virgo is a four-tap WOLA Fourier transform spectrometer. The raw I/Q samples are processed in real time using GNU Radio, with the amount of data stored to file being drastically reduced for further analysis. The following flowgraph handles the acquisition and early-stage processing of the data:

Data Analysis

Once a submitted observation is finished and the data has been acquired and stored to observation.dat, the FFT samples (interpreted as a numpy array in plot.py and plot_hi.py) constitute the dynamic spectrum (waterfall), from which the averaged spectrum and time series (power vs time) of the observation can be derived.

We can mathematically interpret the dynamic spectrum as a two-dimensional matrix with m rows and 2ⁿ columns, where m ∈ ℕ* is the total number of FFT samples (integrations) and 2ⁿ, n ∈ ℕ is the number of frequency channels (FFT size).

In __init__.py, this matrix is defined as a 2D numpy array at line 137.

Time Series Derivation

If we take the average of this matrix with respect to time (power = decibel(np.mean(waterfall, axis=1))), we get a new m × 1 column matrix (or column vector), which is the time series (power vs time) of the observation. This is defined in line 146.

Averaged Spectrum Derivation

Similarly, if we average with respect to the frequency channels (avg_spectrum = decibel(np.mean(waterfall, axis=0))), we get a new 1 × 2ⁿ row matrix (or row vector), which is the averaged spectrum of the observation. This is defined at line 142.

Calibrated Spectrum Derivation

To get the calibrated spectrum, we could simply subtract the OFF spectrum (obtained from an observation of e.g. the cold sky) from the ON spectrum (X(f)_ONmean − X(f)_OFFmean). However, because the system temperature of a radio telescope (T_sys) is generally variable with time and temperature, the noise floor will not be at a constant level. For this reason, it is more appropriate to choose division over subtraction (X(f)_ONmean / X(f)_OFFmean), in order to account for the variability of thse noise floor. The calibrated spectrum is computed at line 165.

Installation

To use Virgo, make sure Python and GNU Radio (with gr-osmosdr) are installed on your machine.

Once Python and GNU Radio are installed on your system, run

pip install astro-virgo

If you do not use an osmocom-supported SDR (unlikely)

Once the repository has been cloned, open pfb.grc using GNU Radio Companion and replace the osmocom Source block with the source block of your SDR (e.g. UHD: USRP Source). After modifying the properties of the new SDR Source block (optional), click the little button next to the Play button to generate the new and updated version of run_observation.py that is compatible with your SDR:

(You only need to do this once.)

Usage

Once Virgo is downloaded on your system and the SDR Source block has been replaced (unless you use an osmocom-supported SDR where you shouldn't need to change anything), you can begin observing with Virgo by running:

python virgo.py [arguments]

(Run python virgo.py -h to see all the available arguments)

Alternatively, you can import Virgo as a Python module (see Example Usage section above).

Credits

Virgo was created by Apostolos Spanakis-Misirlis.

Contact: [e-mail]

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Special thanks to Dr. Cameron Van Eck, Paul Boven and Dr. Cees Bassa for their valuable contributions.