Radio Astronomy

October Meteors

Posted November 2, 2018 by Peter Hill

The radar meteor detection based on the Graves frequency detected 2592 meteors during October.

The maximum daily count was 109 on the 14th Oct with an hourly maximum on the same day between 11;00 – 12:00.

This was probably due to the Delta Aurigids which have a peak activity on the 11th but this tends to spread over several days.

The average daily count was 84 and the average hourly count 4.

The Draconids peak on the 8/9 th October and a high level of activity was recorded in the late hours of the 8th , early horus of the 9th.

https://www.imo.net/draconids-outburst-on-oct-8-9/ This meteor stream is linked with Comet 21/Giabcobini-Zimmer and it was thought its latest visitation would cause such an out burst, in fact it was due to an earlier trail of debris from the comet and could have been more spectacular.

https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/10/14/earth-dodges-a-meteor-storm/

The increase in activity can be seen on the data below , see the hourly chart for Oct 8-9.

The epsilon Geminids peaked on the 18th and the Orionids (linked with Halleys comet) peaked on the 22nd.

The hourly and daily plots are shown below as well as a comparison of the daily plots for 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Next month sees the Taurids around the 12th , Taurid fireballs have already been reported ( see SpaceWeather.com) and the Leonids after midnight on the 17/18, the moon shouldn’t be much of a problem.

New base for mobile radio meteor scatter operations

Posted September 19, 2018 by Andrew Thornett

Last time I bought my mobile meatiest scatter radio equipment to an outreach event at Rosliston forestry Centre, children were dipping and diving around pegs and ropes holding the ex-military Klansman aerial up. This was identified as a health and safety risk. I have just received the item below – recommended by Ed – it is a wonderfully well-designed piece of kit sold as a mobile stand for garden parasols – it locks both up and down using a spring-loaded mechanism and a metal bit which fits into a slot at the top or the bottom so that it is very solidly held in place in either the open or closed position. It is quite robust be made of solid metal construction, and its ability to fold up makes it easy to transport – bank said for a brilliant idea!

Andy

My Clansman radio mast that I am hoping to erect using this base:

Message from George – Greek astronomer from Skopelos

Posted September 15, 2018 by Ed Mann

Hi Folks

I had a reply from George Mihail that I met in greece. It’s worth having a look at his website. Very interesting setup, a great view. The last photo is the latest live feed from his webcam at 1711 15th september. If you read further down, the english translation of my message is at the bottom

Dear friend
We manage to communicate and to take pictures of every activity of the stargate we have a very interesting winter here in Skopelos.Thanks with the best wishesGeorge Michail

https://www.facebook.com/george.michail.16

http://volnet.gr/home/index.html

——-Original Message——-

From: ed.mann@btinternet.com

Date: 12/9/2018 9:18:21 μμ

To: george@volnet.gr

Subject: Αστρονομία στη Σκόπελο (Astronomy in Skopelos)

Γεια Σας Γεώργιος , το όνομά μου είναι Ed, σας μίλησα στη Σκόπελο πριν από λίγες εβδομάδες στο φεστιβάλ. Είμαι ο αστρονόμος από την Αγγλία.

Μου άρεσε να μιλάω μαζί σας και με ενδιέφερε πολύ να μάθω ότι έχετε ένα παρατηρητήριο στο νησί. Θα ήθελα να έρθω και να το δω την επόμενη φορά που θα είμαι εκε

Είμαι μέλος της Ομάδας Αστρονομίας Rosliston που συναντάει κοντά στο Burton on Trent στην Αγγλία (http://www.roslistonastronomy.org.uk/)

Αν κοιτάξετε την Αρχική σελίδα, εγώ είμαι στην πρώτη φωτογραφία (μπλε παλτό) και την 5η φωτογραφία (λευκό πουλόβερ). Μάλλον θα με αναγνωρίσεις από αυτό

Έχω επισυνάψει ορισμένες φωτογραφίες που πήρα. Ήταν τόσο ωραίο να βλέπετε κάποιον άλλον να κάνει δημόσια εκδηλώσεις προβολής. Κάνουμε αρκετά στο κλαμπ μας

Είπα σε άλλα μέλη για το γεγονός της Σκοπέλου και ήταν πολύ ζηλιάρης για το πόσο καθαρός ήταν ο ουρανός

Θα ήταν καλό να μοιράζεστε μαζί σας πληροφορίες και φωτογραφίες, αν θέλετε, και αν έρχεστε ποτέ στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο, θα ήσαστε πολύ ευπρόσδεκτοι να έρθετε στις συναντήσεις του συλλόγου μας

Θα σας δούμε το επόμενο έτος το 2019

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My Greek is not very good so I have written it again in English just in case

Hi George, My name is Ed, I spoke to you in Skopelos a few weeks ago at the festival. I am the astronomer from England

It was great talking to you and I was very interested to know you have an observatory on the island. I woiuld like to come and see it next time I’m there

I’m a member of the Rosliston Astronomy Group that meets near Burton on Trent in the UK (http://www.roslistonastronomy.org.uk/)

If you look at the Home page, that’s me in the 1^stphoto (blue coat) and the 5^th photo (white jumper). You’ll probably recognise me from that

I have attached some photos that I took . It was so nice to see someone else doing public outreach events. We do quite a few in our club

I told the other members about the Skopelos event and they were very jealous of how clear the sky was

It would be good to share information and pictures with you if you’d like, and if you ever come to the UK, you’d be very welcome to come to our club meetings

Bye for now

August Meteors

Posted September 2, 2018 by Peter Hill

Although not visually very active (clouds again!!) the Perseids were very prominent in the radar data. In my post mid august the data showed a maximum daily rate of 313 on the 13th with a maximum hourly rate of 28 between 2-3am on 12th, and as the hourly plot showed the main activity was between 2 – 8 am hence missed by lots of people even if clear, Ed and Dave at Solarfest went to bed too early!!

The meteor count total for the month was 2999, with an average daily count of 97 and average hourly rate of 4.

The hourly and daily plots are below and for comparison below these the August daily count for the last 3 years, interestingly the shower peaked on the 13th in 2018, 2017 but on 12th in 2016, this however is only the daily count and a different set of conditional actions for recording events is now in use.

The final chart is a reposting of the 2018 shower data.

Perseid Shower 2018

Posted August 19, 2018 by Peter Hill

The Perseids have been and gone, maximum hourly count was 28 between 2-3 pm on the 12th and the max daily count was 313 on the 13th. The hourly plot between 10th and 16th shows the daily shower distribution quite clearly, maximum activity picking up for 2pm onwards on most days , hence not many being seen, also the majority of counts were of low duration, so most not very bright, there were some longer duration signals associated with fireballs but not many and certainly not bright enough to trigger the all sky camera which I had running when sky was clear.( which wasn’t very often)

Perseids-ish – Apologies photos now added!

Posted August 14, 2018 by Neil Wyatt

First an apology – for some reason the system wouldn’t let me upload any pictures, I thought I just gave up, but it’s published the post anyway!

My weekend went a bit pear-shaped so I ended up trying to get some Perseid images last night. I only saw one, and my very last shot of the night picked up a very faint one heading straight from the radiant near the double cluster, please excuse the awful coma, on 10th.

This appears to be an ion trail from a meteor that sneaked through between shorter exposures on the 14th

Having much more luck with the Graves Radar setup, thanks to Peter hill for his inspirational talk which encouraged me to take the plunge!

I ahven’t been as sophisticated in my counting of events – my brain isn’t up to checking several thousand screen gabs, so yes there are multiple counts in there as well missed counts from meteors arriving before the previous one finished, space debris and the ISS on multiple occasions. My assumption is that all these errors are effectively random and don’t affect the overall profile significantly.

These are my hourly counts, all peaking about 6:00am – UTC/GMT.

This is the average of the above graph, easier to see the overall daily pattern:

And all the data in a row, to show how the peaks rise and fall:

And an example of some detections:

The Perseids are coming!

Posted August 9, 2018 by Peter Hill

Monitoring of meteor activity using the reflection of the Graves radar signal with the fundongle pro+ shows a gradual increase in the daily count since start of month ( 78), up to 109 for yesterday and the maximum hourly rate has now risen to 15, also noticeable is the higher frequency of longer duration events, that could indicate fireballs such as this trace below. The peak is due on the eve of 12/13 Aug but also possible to view on 11/12th , however forecast is not good for either night !! However with the increase in activity and higher incidence of long lasting trails it might be worth having a look on the eve 10/11th as at least it is supposed to be clear!

July Meteors.

Posted August 1, 2018 by Peter Hill

“Although the July radiants do not individually produce strong rates, activity from the Aquarius and Capricornus regions in July and early August, as well as minor activity from other radiants, cause hourly rates to basically rise between the middle and end of July for observers in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.” ( http://meteorshowersonline.com/july_radiants.html)

Moderate Activity:

Radiant	Duration	Maximum
Southern Delta Aquarids (SDA)	July 14-August 18	July 28/29

Minor Activity

Radiant	Duration	Maximum
Alpha Lyrids	July 9-20	Jul. 14/15
July Phoenicids (PHE)	July 9-17	Jul. 14/15
Alpha Pisces Australids	July 16-August 13	Jul. 30/31
Sigma Capricornids	June 18-July 30	Jul. 10-20
Tau Capricornids	June 2?-July 29	Jul. 12/13
Omicron Draconids	July 6-28	Jul. 17/18

The total number of meteors detected in July (2018) was 1824, with a mean daily rate of 59 and mean hourly rate of 2.5.

The maximum daily rate was 87 on the 26th July and the maximum hourly rate was 11, between 3-4am on the 27th and 30th.

The daily and hourly rates are shown in the first two charts below

These maxima coincide with the SDA shower and the trends over the month reflect the observation quoted at the start of this post. The trend of increasing activity towards the end of the month is borne out in the last chart below which compares the data over the last three years, the suggested trend is more pronounced in the 2016 and 2017 data than this year .

The Perseids are already with us peaking on the night of the 12/13th August, and with a new / very young moon there should be good viewing conditions as long as the clouds stay away.

Nightwatch event 27/7/2018 & successful detection of start of Perseid meteor shower at Rosliston Forestry Centre

Posted July 28, 2018 by Andrew Thornett

On paper, the Nightwatch event was going to be particularly amazing this year. This annual event is an outreach activity organised by Rosliston Forestry Centre, where the astronomy group always has a presence. Many members of the public come to look through our telescopes, watch owl and bird or prey displays, go on a bat walk and join the moth group to explore the world of moths.

Last night stool out in that it coincided with the date of one of our usual meetings, and at the start there was going to be a total lunar eclipse and many planets were on display.

In addition, the sky had been amazingly clear for weeks beforehand.

…….Until the day when it clouded over and we could not see a thing in the night sky during the event!

Good job I bought my mobile meteor radio kit along (telescope at the ready to go in car at home – replaced last minute when I looked at the sky) – worked well (thanks to Bob Williams in particular for his help here) – plenty of meteors detected – we are the start of the Perseid meteor show with the keep coming up in a couple of weeks. The kit includes small portable aerial, Yaesu FT-817 radio, audio cable connection to my windows laptop, Spectrum Lab software, all powered very successfully by Ed Mann’s power pack – the inclusion of in-built inverter and 240V sockets on the side is a real boon. The radio is 12V and currently I am running it through a power supply that plugs into 240V socket which is a bit ridiculous – must make a 12V socket version.

Nevertheless, quite a few people turned up from the club to meet members of the public. Plenty of scopes were on display. It stayed dry and we all had great fun.

This is what it means to observe in the UK. You’ve got to be interested in clouds.

Particular thanks are due to Damian who made the effort to attend in spite of needing to get up really early the following morning to catch the plane for his holiday.

Look at how dry the grass is! We have had a particularly dry summer this year.

Andy