The world’s first parabolic radio telescope was, astonishingly, built in someone’s back yard.
I am reading about the radio telescope of American amateur radio enthusiast and amateur astronomer Grote Reber.
In 1937, Reber built a 9-meter parabolic reflector in his family’s back yard.
Reber was the first to make a systematic survey of the radio sky, not only confirming Jansky’s earlier, pioneering discovery of radio waves from the Milky Way but also discovering radio sources such as Cygnus X-1 and Cassiopeia A.
For nearly a decade, Reber was the only person in the world doing radio astronomy.
Reber had a long life. He spent his final years in Tasmania, one of the few places on Earth where occasionally, very low frequency radio waves penetrate the ionosphere and are detectable by a ground-based antenna.