Lyrids Backscatter Data

By Trevor Clifton

The Lyrids may have been clouded out for visual observers, but Trevor managed to spot them using backscatter detection with his radio antenna.

The bar charts are produced in real time and a sample of the data log is attached.The first two bar charts show the run up to the event giving the background rate and the third the event itself.

Background detection rate in run up to the Lyrids (17th-18th April)
Background detection rate in run up to the Lyrids (17th-18th April)
Background detection rate in run up to the Lyrids (21st-22nd April)
Background detection rate in run up to the Lyrids (21st-22nd April)


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Recent Club Activities

By Richard Harvey

The first few months of 2019 have been a very busy time for the society. As well as our regular meetings and lectures at the Environmental Centre, we’ve been working on the observatory and have also been involved in several outreach events. I thought it might be worth having a look back on our activities in the first part of 2019 in the virtual pages of Lyra.

First group visit to the Wolvas Observatory
First group visit to the Wolvas Observatory

On Saturday 9th February we had our first group visit to our new observatory. It was fantastic to finally ‘unveil’ the pod and show members around. We’ve already started using the dome, (see previous Lyra article on comet 46p/Wirtanen). The dome currently houses the society’s 16″ Orion Optics Dobsonian, and observations made in the early months of 2019 have been recorded for a future Lyra article.

The week following the observatory visit, on the 13th, Doug and Steve gave a talk on the Faulkes Telescope Project at Wolverhampton University. A chance meeting between Steve Wootton and Dr Andrew Gascoyne (senior lecturer in Maths & Physics) had started this off. The University then contacted our Society with a view to collaboration between us, Doug followed it up and they all met up to have a chat.

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