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YouTube stream
Hello Folks We are now testing the YouTube live stream from one of the UK Meteor beacon Project receivers. To view go to https://www.youtube.com/@GB3MBA/streams There are plenty of interesting echoes as I write this. We plan to activate this stream during the Perseids meteor shower. I will leave it on test whenever possible in the mean time. (The PC running the stream does have other duties sometimes ). Brian
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These screenshots show two events captured yesterday The first is of interest because the tail echo was seen by all 5 receivers so was not directional or linearly polarised ... the beacon illuminates the region where meteors burn up with Right Hand Circular polarisation RHCP. The second image shows a tail echo seen by the Norman Lockyer Observatory and NW Hampshire but only with vertical polarisation indicating that this echo was linear polarised. When a signal is reflected from a plane ( mirror like ) surface circularity is maintained but reversed from Right Hand to Left Hand. So in the second image it appears that some RHCP energy is being collected by a cylindrical or wire like reflector which radiates the energy with linear polarisation. This tells us something of the shape and dimensions of the reflecting region. When a linear antenna receives a CP signal there is a loss of the order of 3dB compared to using a correctly polarised CP antenna for receive. Brian
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"Modified BAA Seminar" software
TO MARCUS LEECH: Hi Marcus, Any chance I could ask for copy of this software from you? My email is andrew@... Andy From: sara-list@... <sara-list@...> On Behalf Of Jonathan Pettingale Sent: 02 July 2024 01:48 To: Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers <sara-list@...> Subject: [SARA] Kraken SDR and Interferometry Today I did a 23-hour drift scan, using 2 homemade cantennas, 12 feet apart, feeding a Kraken SDR. The Kraken was controlled using the "Modified BAA Seminar" software kindly provided by Marcus Leech. Cantennas are standard design for 1420 Mhz, with a Sawbird LNA, mounted at the feed point. The time axis is hard to read but starts at 0106 UTC, the big bump is the Sun! These are early days, much needs to be done regarding calibration and sensitivity, but the aim is to make a 5-element interferometer.
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May 2024 Radio Sky News
An 'off-the-chart' month for solar activity, and for the consequential consolidation and reporting work. Many thanks to John Cook for his work on this! Paul Hyde
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Would anyone like to interpret this interesting echo. Observed from NW Hampshire it is mainly horizontally polarised. Armagh sees the same echo with it's horizontally polarised antenna. The Norman Lockyer Observatory sees something quite different. Note the differences in frequency / Doppler shift.
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Latest Discovery dish update
These dishes are looking rather nice. https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/discovery-dish/updates/latest-manufacturing-news Tony
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Here are the same echo seen in NW Hampshire by the live stream and by another receiver at NW Hampshire running SDR Console with a greater bandwidth and faster waterfall. This illustrates the greater detail that it is possible to capture with a faster waterfall. The live stream waterfall lasts about one minute and has +/- 100Hz bandwidth the SRD Console waterfall lasts about 30 seconds and has +/-500Hz bandwidth. With a fast waterfall it's much harder to capture events manually as these were, we are working on capturing events automatically with a much faster rate than can conveniently be displayed. Data will be transferred from rolling buffers to more permanent memory for later analysis when significant events are seen. The embedded timing, not shown here, will enable events to be correlated. B
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Developments in VLBI - Now on You Tube
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Hi Radio Astronomy Section Zoom Monday the 10th June Paving the Way: Next-generation Developments in VLBI Dr Jack Radcliffe ¨C UK SKA Regional Centre (UKSRC) research scientist at the University of Manchester and senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria Video is now on YouTube here You can find links to previous meeting videos and associated materials here Kind Regards John B
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A fairly quiet day in respect of Solar Flares with one M class flare from AR13697. I normally monitor GQD and DHO. GQD has been down for a few day so relying on DHO for my daily dose of VLF observations. The M6 flare had timings of Start: 1450 Peak:1506 and End:1522 according to SpaceweatherLive. My timings were slightly out as this is a secondary observation but the weird thing is I can see a blast of interference from GQD (or something close) at exactly the same time. Did anyone else see this or can explain what is going on? The spikes at 1700 are typical and fairly normal here. Something obviously being turned on r off. The step effect is caused by my freezer cycling on and off.. Thanks -- -- Martyn
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There are lots of interesting echoes at present showing different directional and polarisation properties along with big spreads of Doppler in the tails and strange shapes. Here's just one example. We'd love to hear your thoughts and see your example screen shots. The Norman Lockyer Receiver will be off line from time to time while electrical works are carried out at the observatory. Brian
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Next RAZoom now Monday June 10th 19:30 BST (18:30UTC) - Developments in VLBI
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Paving the Way: Next-generation Developments in VLBI Dr Jack Radcliffe - UK SKA Regional Centre (UKSRC) research scientist at the University of Manchester and senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria The Zoom room will be open from 19:15 BST (18:15 UTC). Zoom link will be sent out Friday 7th June In the past few decades, surveys using radio telescopes have provided us with unique insights into many areas of astrophysics such as star formation, supernovae, active galactic nuclei, pulsars, cosmology and much more. A key aspect of these surveys is the technique of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) which can provide some of the highest resolutions possible in astronomy. This method has made crucial discoveries in many areas of astrophysics and geodesy including cosmology, galaxy formation and evolution, the innermost regions of active galactic nuclei, explosive phenomena and transients, stars and stellar masers in the Milky Way, celestial reference frames and space applications. In this talk, I shall review some of the discoveries made using VLBI, and highlight the exciting developments coming from existing and new instruments such as the ngVLA, next-generation Event Horizon Telescope and the Square Kilometre Array. If you want to be added to the Zoom Distribution list please let me know. -- ??? Paul Hearn ?? paul@... ?? RA Section Director ??
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Hello Folks A lot of echoes lately . How about some of you watching the display for a few minutes a day, preferably in the mornings and providing a meteor count and perhaps your own image of the day along with your conclusions/observations. Of particular interest are the directional nature of the echoes at this 6m wavelength. This infers the shape and dimensions of the reflecting body which is also suggested by the "strength" of the linear polarisation. The different Doppler shifts observed from different directions, when multiple observations are available, also infers location and trajectory. Such observations are highly subjective and do not offer precision. When we are able to offer the raw receiver data with increased bandwidth and precision timing more objective conclusions may be possible. In the mean time here are two images snapped this morning. Lets see some from you.. Go to https://ukmeteorbeacon.org/beaconclient/ and see for yourself remember mornings UK time are best as the UK faces into our direction of travel around the sun. Brian
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Iceland has gone pop again ....
Next stage of the eruptions around Grindavik has started. The uplift in the surface has reached record levels over the last week or so, suggesting that this might be the most energetic episode yet. Paul Hyde
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I have been having a play around with software for generating images using AI. Here are my pictures of radio telescopes sent to Mars and Moon by NASA or ESA or perhaps BAA RAG! Also an alien artifact found in cave on Mars and an even stranger abstract picture of who knows what!? Perhaps an alien radio telescope?! (C) Andrew Thornett Andy
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Today's screenshot illustrates clearly the directional and linearly polarised nature of meteor echoes at the wavelength of 6m. The illuminating signal is Right Hand circular polarised. The three echoes seen by the NW Hampshire Horizontally polarised system are unseen by the NW Hampshire vertically polarised receiver. They are seen by the Norman Lockyer receiver but not by the Armagh receiver. Note also how the Doppler shifts differ between NW Hampshire and Norman Lockyer. We will be investigating whether this can be used to triangulate the location and trajectory of the meteors although the directional nature of these echoes will make that challenging.
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Yesterday at 18:07UTC I recorded a clear SID event. There is no corresponding solar flare at this time in the NOAA record and the X-ray flus is flat. The attached plot shows the signal for Anthorn Skelton and Ramsloh. The green trace for 19.6kHz. 20.9kHz and 22.1kHz is recorded using a 0.4m loop aerial and a sound card. The blue trace for 19.6kHz (1.0m loop aerial) and 23.4kHz (0.6m loop aerial) are recorded using UKRAA VLF receivers. Did any other observers record the same event? If so was it on the same frequencies or did other stations show the same event. Many thanks Andrew Thomas
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Meteor Detection using a Raspberry Pi
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Hi All, I had a brief conversation with John Cook at the BAA Winchester Weekend about the feasibility of using a Raspberry Pi, SDR dongle and appropriate software to detect meteors, he suggested I post here. The last time I did meteor detection I was using a custom script I¡¯d created in SpectrumLab (see here https://crayfordmanorastro.com/radio/meteor-observations-with-radio/) with an X86 laptop and handheld scanner. At the time, I had investigated using a Raspberry Pi but they were pretty new, x86 software wasn¡¯t compatible and the project didn¡¯t go anywhere. Since then, USB SDR Dongles have been invented, Raspberry Pis are now on version 5 and the Pi 5 is significantly more powerful than the Win 98 Laptop I was using, has more memory, faster disk and network access etc. Windows has also come to ARM, I believe there is a Just in Time (JIT) re-complier that recompiles x86 software on the fly (JIT compilers are very fast), but I have no experience of this, also Linux SW has developed a huge amount so there might even be a mature Linux software solution (my main Laptop is Linux). Anyway - I¡¯m now thinking of trying again, creating a meteor detector to compliment the visual meteor detector my Astro Society (Crayford) already runs. The concept is a Raspberry Pi, USB SDR, and appropriate software. I¡¯d save the files to a NAS with remote cloud access so members can share any post processing/collation for reporting purposes. Do you know if anyone is already doing radio meteor detection on a Raspberry Pi? If so can you point me to the details? I¡¯m also interested in compatible USB SDR¡¯s and Compatible Analysis Software (like Spectrum Lab) I¡¯d like to know this is possible because I don¡¯t want to reinvent the wheel and I don¡¯t want to spend my societies cash finding out it can¡¯t be done! :-) Thanks, Simon.
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?? Saturation of detector during aurora 10-11/5/2024
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Hi All, Please can you look at the question I have posed here on this link (on link so I can upload associated graphs to make question clear) ¨C what are your thoughts? https://astronomy.me.uk/lro-sid-monitoring-graphs-at-23-4khz-from-10-11-5-2024-when-the-aurora-was-seen-in-my-garden-lichfield-uk Andy
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Python for Muons#4 now on You Tube
Radio Astronomy Section Zoom Monday the 13th May 2024 Python for Muons#4 by Rupert Powell Video is now on YouTube here Github for the code used in the Python for Muons course can be found here You can find links to previous meeting videos and associated materials here Kind Regards John Berman
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May HAARP Research Campaign and Geomagnetic Storm
Hello everyone - In case you're seeing online discussions regarding connections between the recent geomagnetic storm and the HAARP May research campaign, University of Alaska Fairbanks has put out a press release here (https://www.gi.alaska.edu/news/solar-storm-not-haarp-creates-intense-auroral-display ), with more information available here (https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu/may-space-weather-faq ) Please reach out if you have any questions. Whit -- Whitham D. Reeve Anchorage, Alaska USA ---
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Sat 8:39am
Sat 8:39am