[time-nuts] Pulsars make a GPS for the cosmos

[Jim Lux]

On 9/29/13 3:42 AM, mc235960 wrote:
>
> Le 28 sept. 2013 à 14:26, Magnus Danielson a écrit :
>
>
>    I think the radio elescope(s) needed are much smaller. There are apparently 2 pulsar clocks installed here in europe, one in St Catherine's church Gdansk and the other in the European Parliament, Brussels. The Wiki article states "The pulsar clock consists of a radiotelescope with 16 antennas, which receive signals from six designated pulsars. Digital processing of the pulsar signals is done by an FPGA device" . I have tried to find more details without success, but the antennas must be reasonable sized to be installed in such places. I think the OP link indicates that X-ray wavelengths would be used which bring down the detector size. No use on earth though.
>

It would be interesting to find out more info.

Xrays are nice (see X-NAV), but so far, nobody has built a small, 
lightweight X-ray detector of sufficient efficiency.  You don't want to 
have multiple detectors the size of Chandra, XMM, or Nustar