Meteors live stream August 12, 2020
After two previous live stream demonstrations, we provided another live stream demonstration, on Wednesday, August 12 at 20:00 CEST. We did this because the radio telescope is still closed to visitors due to Covid-19 measures.
One of the specializations of CAMRAS volunteers Simon Bijlsma and Frans de Jong is observing meteors by means of reflections of radio waves on meteor trails. They explained and showed how they do it. Not with the large radio telescope, but with a small antenna next to the radio telescope, a radio beacon in Belgium or France and with software that processes the radio waves received by the antenna.
On August 12, the meteors from the Perseid meteor shower were clearly visible. At eight o’clock in the evening (local time in Dwingeloo) it is still light outside and consequently we could not see the meteor trails with the naked eye. But that did not matter because in the demonstration we looked at radio waves reflected by the meteor trails of the Perseids. Later in the evening or at night it was still possible to try to see the meteors with the naked eye.
The live stream lasted about half an hour and during the demonstration viewers could ask questions via the chat function of YouTube.
The YouTube URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ergwWE2J2-g.
More information on this website can be found in the articles Observing meteors by Simon and Frans.
Other information about meteors:
- http://radio.meteor.free.fr/fr/en/logiciels.html#4
- http://www.rmob.org/livedata/main.php
- http://brams.aeronomie.be/theory
- https://www.imo.net/
The CAMRAS webSDR http://websdr.camras.nl:8901/
