ERGO - Energetic Ray Global Observatory

The Timescope is now available on Kindle. Have a wonderful Father's Day!

The Timescope Between mid-1476 and mid-1478 the activities of Leonardo da Vinci are unknown. There are no artworks, notebook entries, or arrest warrants recorded during that time. This book is a history of what might have happened to lead to the world in which we live today. Whether it is true or not is imposs...

Now it can be told. Back in 2013 some students and I launched a cosmic-ray research balloon. Because of an electrical problem, the balloon did not release from the payload at a low altitude, and the whole shebang drifted northwest from our launch site on Virginia Key, eventually landing in the Everglades near the Gulf Coast. With the help of a park ranger, we recovered the payload and were able to download the tracking data. The GPS sensor would only report altitudes up to 60,000 feet, but we estimated the balloon broke around 80,000 to 100,000 feet. Sharp eyes will note that the track went right over a major airport.

We're sorry it's been so long since an update, but here's what's happening, summer of 2016:

We have five student interns working on various projects at our lab in Miami. The Raspberry Pi-based ERGO pixels that were built last summer have all been tested and verified to be working, and we've been sending them out to people who have requested them. We have lots more of them, waiting for applications (go to: http://www.ergotelescope.org/get-involved/ergo-grant-application/)

Several people from the TED community have expressed interest in hosting ERGO pixels, and we are following up on them. The TED community extends all over the world, dedicated to the TED.com mission of "Ideas Worth Spreading." So, TED is a natural match for the ERGO Project. With help from TEDsters, we hope to extend the ERGO network to locations in Africa, Oceania, and Asia.

Some of our students are working to improve our fusion reactor experiment. While it's only loosely related to cosmic rays, we are having a lot of fun and learning a lot about nuclear physics, vacuum technology, high-voltage engineering, and neutrons. Last week we ran our Farnsworth Fusor up to 20 kV with deuterium, and we measured a few tens of neutrons per minute above the background. The remaining technical problems are the design of the insulation for the inner negative electrode support and improving the sensitivity of our neutron detector. We hope to put together documentation this summer to apply for inclusion in the amateur "Neutron Club" at fusor.net. Here's a picture of what 200 million degrees C looks like:

ERGO Grant Application | ERGO – Energetic Ray Global Observatory Fill out my Wufoo form!

Students are Building the World's Largest Telescope It detects cosmic rays, and it doesn't look anything like a telescope. But still...SCIENCE!

Progress report on the new 4th-Generation ERGO pixels:

It's been nearly a year since you last heard from us about the next-generation pixels. You may recall that we were working on an Arduino-based third-generation pixel, but after experiencing lots of problems with software and database access, and with the cost growing because of the need for an Arduino + ethernet + SD card, we shelved that project. Three of the Arduino pixels were supplied to teams doing balloon launches, and the first was launched on July 20, 2014.

What we really wanted is a full-function computer with added ERGO functionality, cheap, compact, and reliable. Our advanced 4th-Generation team was started by Daniel Huertas at MIT and completed by Matt Weger in Miami. The 4th-Gen pixel consists of a custom ERGO board (with G-M detector, GPS module, and signal-conditioning electronics) plugged onto a Raspberry Pi linux computer board. That's it. Total cost of parts, including power supply, enclosure, and antenna is around $150.

Photos show the ERGO board with a RasPi B+; the rear panel of the RasPi pixel; a stack of three of them currently online (with Swiss Army Knife for scale); and, the first unit being packaged to send to Brian Jacoby in Reston, VA, USA.

This morning at UTC 01:00 The Magna Grecia Aerospace Team, led by Antonino Brosio, launched a ERGO instrument on a balloon to extremely high altitudes from Sicitaly, Italy. The instrument has our most advanced GPS sensor, able to operate up to 60,000 ft, and a new high-voltage circuit protected against corona for high altitude reliability.

We are awaiting results from the launch and hope to post the data from the launch soon.
http://www.mgaerospace.it/?p=814

La ricerca dei Raggi Cosmici e L’unità ERGO Telescope I Raggi Cosmici & l’Unità ERGO Telescope A cura di Giuseppe D’Agostino Raggi Cosmici Primari I raggi cosmici sono particelle estremamente energetiche, originate principalmente al di fuori del nostro sistema […]

We have a bunch of interns working on the ERGO Project this summer in Miami. Our main tasks are:

1. Test and build a few Beta ERGO pixels using the last remaining circuit boards from last summer. Sloane is leading the team to build these "Beta" units which are the same as the units now placed around the world.

2. William is leading the team to build a few Generation 3 ERGO pixels using the Freescale Ethermega processor board and a custom ERGO "shield" which contains the Geiger counter and GPS systems. These pixels are functionally the same as our existing "Beta" units now placed around the world. We have built a few of these. One is online in the map at www.ergotelescope.org as pixel 333. We've built three others that have the internet connections disabled, so they can be used in balloon payloads. We've sent two of these to experimental groups in Italy, and one more is being tested for a balloon launch in Latvia. The Generation 3 board has a couple of disadvantages, though: it only works on local area networks that have DHCP enabled and no security; and, they're expensive (the Ethermega board costs around $120. That's why we're also working Generation 4 and 5.

3. Generation 4 uses a Raspberry Pi processor board along with our custom ERGO Geiger-counter/GPS circuit board. Since the Raspberry Pi is actually a linux desktop computer, it includes all the hardware and software to enable connections to any kind of LAN you can imagine, including WiFi! The Raspberry Pi is amazingly inexpensive, too: about US$35, which will bring the total cost of parts for an ERGO pixel down to under $150. We've designed the custom board for the Raspberry Pi, and bare boards are now being fabbed in China. We hope to have a manufacturer build complete boards that can be purchased by anyone who wants to build their own pixel.

4. Generation 5 is a totally self-contained ERGO pixel on a single circuit board. Simon and his team are breadboarding that system, and we hope to have software developed and the first boards being assembled by the end of the summer. Generation 5 will be the lowest possible cost, because it is only one circuit board, so we don't have to buy a Raspberry Pi or Ethermega board to build a complete pixel. Simon's team is also working to develop a better muon detector for future ERGO pixels. They are trying to build a PIN-diode detector with a plastic scintillator, and they are setting up a vacuum-coating system to attempt making our own silicon detector wafers.

5. Another team, led by Steven, is working on ERGO data analysis. They are developing apps and techniques to look at the very large database of information we have built up over the last few years. We expect to find patterns in time and spatial distributions, some of them random, some caused by our pixel's, themselves, and perhaps some caused by natural physics.

ERGO – Energetic Ray Global Observatory | Enabling Kids to Build the World's Largest Telescope Enabling Kids to Build the World's Largest Telescope

Finally! A working Arduino-based payload for Giuseppe's ERGO balloon payload for his launch this summer in association with Magna Garcia Aerospace in Italy. Still needs some testing, but almost ready to ship. It runs at up to 5 events/second, so it should be possible to record fairly high incidence rates at altitude.

Coolest Thing Ever. Khan Academy is an online set of videos that constitute much of a university education, free to all. But, what if you don't have an internet connection? What if you don't have electricity? Imagine a tiny "intelligence hot spot" that can be solar powered and serves all of Khan Academy (as well as the school version of Wikipedia) to any device that can connect with wifi. It's really small. Total installed cost (not including solar panel) is $50. Fifty bucks. Where in the world would you send such a thing?

Here's my first one, working at the Syntheon lab. Let's build a bunch and send them out into the world. http://pi.mujica.org/howto.html

We got the balloon payload from the August 17 launch back, courtesy of the National Park Service! We're still analyzing data, but the attached picture tells you where it started and ended up. The data above 39,000 feet were scrambled and unusable, but you can fill in the middle with your imagination. In MY imagination, it must have gone very, very high. With some math and science we hope to calculate the actual maximum altitude.

Here's where the ERGO Balloon payload was found by National Park Service Ranger Tom Iandimarino:

NEWS FLASH!! The ERGO Balloon payload was found by a park ranger in the Everglades. We'll be getting it back soon!