National Space Centre Leicester

The BAA Radio Astronomy Group will be holding its 2014 General Meeting on Saturday, May 17 at the National Space Centre, Leicester, LE4 5NS. The last two meetings have both sold out ahead of the day and early booking is advisable.

This year Dr Klaas Wiersema (University of Leicester) will describe how new radio telescope technologies enable the exploration of the “transient” radio Universe, from the mysterious millisecond duration “fast radio bursts” to the energetic afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) which are sometimes visible for years. The presentation will show how new technology is allowing us to study afterglows and other transients in a completely new way.

Supporting papers so far offered are: an ultra-low cost Hydrogen Line radio telescope (Peter East); the modelling of our local galactic topology (Gordon Dennis); the design of an Arduino-based magnetometer (Jonathan Rawlinson M0ZJO); making and analysing observations with Starbase (Laurence Newell); experiments with a small SDR radio telescope (David Morgan 2W0CXV); and reports on developments at EAARO (Jason Williams M0YJW) and the Harold Clayton Observatory (Dave James).

Tickets for the event cost £12 for BAA members and £15 for non-members, including free parking at the NSC and free admission to the main attraction, excluding the Planetarium show. Tea and coffee will be provided during the breaks but lunch is not included. Delegates are welcome to bring their own lunch or the NSC shop (Boosters) sells a range of sandwiches and other refreshments. It would help the NSC if you could also note the number of people in your party that are likely to use Boosters when you book tickets.

All ticket sales will be via the BAA but you do not need to be a BAA member to purchase tickets.  A Booking Form is available at the BAA RAG website at http://www.britastro.org/radio/ from where you can also download the latest edition of RAGazine.

The closing date for the next edition of RAGazine is February 7. Please think whether you can offer any material for this or future editions.  This can be a technical or education article (inc. work in progress, or a negative experiment); project ideas; appeals for teaming; news items; practical tips; relevant professional developments; humour; book reviews; useful resources; parts and equipment news and reviews; observatories; calendar events, etc.  RAGazine covers newcomers through experienced folk, radio astronomy and geophysics, without restriction over frequency range or technology base.

If you have any queries regarding the RAG 2014 event, please mail me direct at: radiogroup <at> britastro.org

Best wishes
Paul Hyde G4CSD
BAA RAG Coordinator

BAA-RAG Yahoo Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baa-rag