Welcome to The S.E.T.I Research & Community Development Institute Limited web Site. It is our intention to keep you informed on the happenings and ongoing work of the Amateur SETI movement in Australia. We are a non-government, non-profit organisation that has as it's members, some of the brightest minds in the world of science. We exist due to the generous assistance of our sponsors and friends. Some of these organizations and individuals are listed below and we are grateful for their contributions to our cause.

                                          Our Mission 

SETI research group came into existence in 1998 when attending the SETI In the 21st Century conference at the University of Western Sydney, Campbelltown NSW. We were a group of Seti League members attending the conference and in between the various papers being presented, the delegates had the opportunity to mix and enjoy some informal discussions. After returning to Brisbane (QLD Australia) an informal meeting with some of our SetiLeague colleagues occurred and we decided that our group should get fully involved with designing and constructing our own SETI Observatory. After all, the Southern Hemisphere offered the best astronomical viewing opportunities in the world. The task was enormous. We needed land, electrical power, equipment, willing labour, money !!!!! Money???? How and who would be so generous to help us out? Well, as it turned out, many individuals and companies came forward to assist us with all aspects of the design, and construction of a facility that would rival anything done elsewhere in the world. SO, OUR MISSION was to do all of the above on a shoe string budget. Yeah Alright, pull the other leg!!! Seriously, we have done it. Our sponsors and willing labour force have done the seemingly impossible. We now have a block of land (2acres) in Southern Queensland with a 13KW Solar Power Station, 2 large 40 Ft dishes, a 14inch Celestron C-14 Optical Telescope facility with C.C.D. camera, accommodation for caretaker and visitors, equipment buildings and most other things to allow us to start doing what we set out to do, look for evidence of other civilisations and to educate our young minds that perhaps we aren't the only technological civilisation in the cosmos. This website aims to keep you informed as to our progress. We hope that you enjoy your visit with us. We will endeavour to make your visits here enjoyable. Many sections of the website get updated. Just cruise around regularly and keep up-to-date with what we are up to. Oh, and please sign our guestbook we value your comments.

Special Web Sites and Features From Our Activities in Boonah

                  News News SITE WEBCAMS are Here Now !!

Broadband ADSL is now installed and working at the Observatory site so we have setup three webcams for you to look at. Our local area network is finished being configured and all is looking good. The new cameras will provide new pictures every 60 seconds of the site in Boonah. Stay tuned. Not only will this monumental event provide cute pix of our activities but it will allow us to easily control the site remotely. A huge development for us. Our fourth and final webcam will be active at night and will be pointed at the sky. This will allow our northern hemisphere visitors to get a look at the southern hemisphere sky almost in real time.

    WEBCAM 1                        WEBCAM 2                     WEBCAM 3

Click any of the above three pictures to get a larger view of the site webcam images at the observatory. The pictures are updated every 60 seconds so re-load often to see interesting things like Kangaroos, birds and two cute hare's and other local wildlife from around the area. At weekends especially Saturday, you will see us working away at our projects of the day. ENJOY.

            The Business End Of The Radio Telescope Started

Construction of the large radio telescopes has begun. Mike Boggan arrived at the site with his son David and together with Ron Waghorn and our other intrepid workers, we got working on the first dish to see what problems we would encounter with the refit of the 1420 mhz feed and the resurfacing of the dish surface with our new aluminium plate. Basically, we have re-engineered the feedhorn with dual polarisation. That is two antennas inside the feedhorn connected to their own LNA's. The LNA's were provided by Radio Astronomy Supplies and are considered to be the best on the market. Each LNA is powered from a battery (12v) that is kept topped up from a small solar cell mounted on the side of the dish. We will be mounting the first I/F stage under the dish. This reduces losses in the system as we only have to cable for a low frequency feed into the processing system. A few years ago we suffered a loss of the original aluminium plate that was used as the reflective surface needed to bounce the radio signals up to the feedhorn. One of our sponsors Atlas Specialty Metals came to the rescue and provided us with replacement plate the we profiled and cut to size as a replacement for the missing metal. The outcome has been amazing. We will have a better result than anticipated as we will be able to improve the frequency response of the antenna as we can improve the accuracy of the surface as we install each new segment. We needed to make sure that the basic structure of the dish was good enough to mount the new surface and the approach was a novel one. More on this later !!.

                       Caretakers Cottage Gets A Makeover

After the loss of our site caretaker Ronald Welstead in June this year we decided that we should do a make over of the residence just in case we found someone who would like to live on the site and look after things for us. So we decided to make some changes to the appearance of the facility and make it look more inviting to a prospective tenant. Using Australia's trusty corrugated iron (colourbond) we did a makeover and you will agree that it looks great. A small paved area and some protective parking area for motor vehicles together with an improvement in the verandas make the residence look much more homely. What a difference it made to the appearance of the facility and the new screens keep out the birds and rain (if we ever get any again !!) when it rains hard.

                                  Life Among the Stars

The Bio-Astronomy 2002 conference was held in Australia at Hamilton Island 8 ~ 12 July. Some of our members attended and some preliminary snapshots and captions can be found here.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                         **NEW**   

Could our UNIVERSE be one giant COMPUTER SIMULATION?

Neil Boucher investigates this possibility in his essay titled SIMULATION OF THE UNIVERSE. It asks fundamental questions about our own reality, if there really is one !!!!!

See what NASA'S Hubble sees, with the click of a mouse

Each day, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope collects enough information and images to fill five encyclopaedia's. Now, anyone with access to a computer and the World Wide Web can see the most exciting pictures captured by the world's first space-based optical telescope.

A new web site, "Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe," highlights the unique contributions to astronomy by this tireless observatory. The exhibition was developed by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Baltimore, MD, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution

To experience the new "Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe," visit: http://hstexhibit.stsci.edu

The Hubble's official online science web site is located at: http://hubble.stsci.edu

Ground Breaking News

Astrobiology Magazine This site is dedicated to the subject of Astrobiology so you can keep up to date with all the current news on this subject here.

Planet Quest The fifth-brightest star in the night sky may be home to planetary system similar to ours, according to new research by astronomers at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. Computer modeling techniques have shown that the structure of a faint dust disk around Vega can be best explained by a Neptune-like planet orbiting at a similar distance to Neptune in our own solar system and having similar mass.

Panspermia.org Life on Europa or other moons? Scientists say "probably"?

Eso.org The European Southern Observatory is an intergovernmental, European organisation for astronomical research. It has eight member countries. E.S.O. operates astronomical observatories in Chile and has its headquarters in Garching, near Munich, Germany.

Contact Information

• Information and general enquiries info@seti.org.au
• Technical Information tech@seti.org.au
• Web Master nwelstead@seti.org.au
• Or Snail Mail

P.O. Box 1242 Kenmore
Mail Delivery Centre
Brisbane Queensland, Australia 4069

Awards

We are pleased to announce this site was chosen, as winner of the SETI SuperStar Award for the month of May 2000.

Other Awards
	This Site has been awarded the Golden Web Award for excellence in design by the International Association of Web Masters & Designers in 2001/02 & 2003/04.