[BAA-ebulletin 00621] 2011 Radio Astronomy Group Meeting, Northampton, Saturday 12th November

[BAA electronic bulletins service]

Please note that we have had a good response to this event and now only have a few tickets left.  We are looking to see if we can rearrange poster areas to make way for a few more seats, but potential attendees should secure their tickets in advance.

Highlights of the day include:

Prof Paul Alexander, Head of Astrophysics at the Cavendish Laboratory, will be talking about the impressive new radio telescopes that are currently under development, such as the Square Kilometre Array, and its precursors ASKAP and MeerKAT.

Dr Ben Stappers, Senior Lecturer at Jodrell Bank, will be talking about LOFAR - the first in a new generation of ‘software telescopes’ and will describe the technology that has gone into building the telescope and present new commissioning results.

Dr David Morgan will give an introduction to radio sources, including a discussion of radio spectra and the physics of generation, from solar storms, through hydrogen line and other galactic emissions to extragalactic radio sources and pulsars.

Tony Abbey will talk about his experiences of using the AMSAT-UK FUNcube Dongle - an example of one of the new software defined radio receivers.

Dr David Morgan will describe how the FUNcube Dongle raises the prospect of amateurs being able to put together a low-cost radio telescope.

Noah Hardwicke from the Monmouth Science Initiative will talk about Project STEP (Solar Terrestrial Environment Physics) describing this Royal Society-supported project and the work carried out by students.

Martyn Kinder  My life with a Magnetometer or two! Come and hear about Martyn’s experiences of using the SAM magnetometer and the new UKRAA instrument.

Mark Edwards will describe his derivation of a simple model for the ionosphere to explain the observed variation of received VLF signal strengths.

Paul Hyde will talk about using commercial short wave receivers to observe solar emissions, in particular his work at 38MHz.

John Cook will talk about the VLF observing programme and the the new work being done in correlating SIDs against disturbances to the magnetosphere.

As well as the above, there will be a variety of posters and demonstrations covering various aspects of amateur radio astronomy.

The meeting will be held at The Humfrey Rooms, 10 Castilian Terrace, Northampton, NN1 1LD from 1030 am.  Further details can be found at http://www.britastro.org/radio

Please contact Karen.holland at xcam.co.uk to buy your ticket.  Tickets are £15 (£12 for BAA members) and include buffet lunch and morning and afternoon tea and coffee. Tickets without lunch but with tea and coffee are also available at £10 and £7 respectively.