Stormchaser

Thank you! Hoping for more good nights before low altitude Summer ecliptic comes.

Thank you both! I had a similar feeling when observing with the eyepiece, and I wanted to capture it!

Great lighting conditions for this couple The largest crater, Aristoteles, is a ~90km-wide circular crater with steep slopes and very high walls with terraces. Its companion, Eudoxus, is a ~70km-wide crater with central mountains and hills that emerge beautifully with the sun setting over the two formations. First light for my new C11, and even if the seeing was average to bad, the performance was amazing! Looking forward to improving my images in the future. Seeing 3/5 - Celestron C11 EdgeHD - SkyWatcher AZ-EQ6 Pro - Barlow 3x COMA Apo/Apla - ASI 174 MM - Baader Red Interference - 500 frames - AS!3 - Registax 6.1 - Photoshop CC

Very nice totals, that's for sure. Mine were around 50+ at the maximum, and the difference in distance between us and the source of the signal shows itself perfectly here.

Hello @strinjf and welcome to the dark side of capturing meteor echoes with a Pi Nice L shaped echo you got there! There are some ways to do it, better with the new RasPi 4, but nothing with SpectrumLab, I'm afraid. The software architecture was not made for that, unfortunately, so you have to resort to alternatives, if you want to use a Pi. This https://sourceforge.net/projects/echoes/ is a project for which I gave some feedback with a Raspi 3b+ some time ago. The Echoes code works with a Pi, with a couple of tricks along the way, but it does not present the same volume of customisation that SpectrumLab has. Nonetheless, it could be good as a start if you want to 'play' a bit with it. Regarding a PC instead, you don't need much, except if you want to stream your live waterfall online, and even an old computer will work. If you need anything else, please feel free to ask.

Hello @jarralad58, Ken, Could you expand the conditional actions windows as much as possible and take another screenshot? I am using a similar setup to the MetScat v7, but I never saw that particular line becoming red. Or, if you can, could you attach the associated text file for the same setup? So we can check it better.

That sporadic E was surely well defined, nice catch @johnb! I got something similar in May, I think, I should check my archives. Thank you for sharing my stream @SteveNickolls! Let's see how different the two will be.

Yes, I think I got those two peaks at the end of July, as the completed monthly data shows: Regarding the negative declination, non necessarily, since the declination and the right ascension are not tilted in the same way of azimuth and elevation. The RA and Dec grid is aligned with the celestial equator (which is the projection of our equator into space) with the North Celestial Pole being near the Polaris in UMi. The azimuth and elevation grid instead is purely local, so it is possible to see negative declinations from here: the star Spica, half of Orion constellation and the whole Aquarius are in negative declinations, to give some examples. The background values have risen, with peaks around 20/30 meteors per hour, which is similar to what happened last year in the first days of August. Sign that we are already inside the Perseid stream. Curious to this year's maximum! Honestly, they surprise me too. In the first place I didn't imagine that I would be able to receive the GRAVES signal from up here, since the volume of sky that we share is definitely low on the horizon. But yes, having an unobstructed view towards the South definitely helps a lot. My antenna points almost towards the ground, more or less.

Hello @Geminids, this is the updated count for July, up to today's midday. Very interesting totals ramping up in the last days, 400 meteors yesterday is the provisional season maximum, with over 40 meteors/h peaks in the mornings.

Yes, I bought some of those afterwards, but while they did something good, the interference from my main pc sometimes still appears. Well, as of now nothing that I can do about it, since I cannot locate the hardware in a different place.

Thank you! It was indeed one of the strongest I managed to register. Orbit is limited, indeed, and from here we are near those very limits. However, it is doable, so I will continue to monitor. Regarding the ISS and the Starlink Trains, I got four more transits of the first, and one of the 7th series, but I need to start drawing everything on a map properly, otherwise all of this will not be very precise.

Thank you! I wanted to go for the stream since almost the start, and now it is happening! Waiting for the Perseids later in the month... and then in August. Yes, as you surmised, my zero (GRAVES) Doppler is on 1060/1065 Hz on SpectrumLab. Maybe I should add a marker of some kind to make it more clear, thanks for the suggestion. Had to jostle a bit with the positioning of the antenna cable indoor, since sometimes it still picks up noise from my home pc...

I managed to combine a slider on the static image of the last L-shaped meteor echo received from my station together with the actual echo sound recording. It was a step I wanted to do for some time. Now you can 'hear' and 'see' it both at the same time, and even if I'm not listening every minute, I can recreate the event. I have also put my SpectrumLab screen on live streaming on youtube, you can find it here: hebweather.net/meteor-echoes/ Again, thanks to everyone here on the forum who helped me in reaching this point!

Hello @Geminids, I'm really sorry for the super late reply. I had lost access and only now was able to remember what email I had used. In any case, I continued recording what ISS transits I could, and also many of the new megaconstellation Starlink passages of the earlier launches. I still have to compile a map like the one I posted here (hoping that I can go that far back on heavens-above, which I use to get the satellite data on the world map) and I hope that my MRes will leave me a bit of time to do it. I managed to get this one from yesterday's passage, one of the best ISS echoes I've ever captured, but it was further South compared to the ones of that map. Only think I can say for now, is that the study continues.

I really like the second one, with the complex echo. It's interesting that we got different signals for that day, I checked my archive where I usually store the strongest ones, but I didn't keep those, meaning that there were not on my spectrum. Very interesting. I got this big one however in the early hours of the 11th, one of the most beautiful of the month for now.

Thank you very much @BiggarDigger! That post was a goldmine of information, I've already found what I needed, so thank you again! ISS again this morning, today with a more westward track, but I got an echo. As you can see, the track is very faint, but it is visible from approximately 10:32:40 to 10:33:00 BST, just at the edge of my 10 degrees visibility circle from Stornoway. Combining all my three observations (red ticks for start/end echo times) into a single map from Dijon perspective, we get this approx. shape, which is mostly into the GRAVES radar main lobe, but also (especially with today's transit) above it. Further transits are definitely required, but I think that it's already possible to get an idea from this.

This afternoon's update about the ISS. I managed to get this transit too, from around 11:21:55 to 11:22:15 BST approximately. The signal was fainter than yesterday, in fact the algorithm didn't manage to recognize it as a meteor and didn't capture it, but I clearly saw the oblique line on the screen, along with the frequency shift. The area remains the same, I think that with this we are possibly at the northern limits of the main GRAVES Radar area. Will continue to check in the next days, but now I'm pretty sure that this is the ISS. Still no echoes from the Channel or southern England transits, will have to wait for pure northern France (like Normandy) ones to see if it's possible to get something from those locations.

Thank you for the reference with the CEST timezone for Dijon and the details on the frequency behavior, it definitely looks like what you said. The ISS was above my horizon, albeit very low in the daytime sky, but there should be no doubts about that. I'm monitoring this morning, but for now the two higher transits (one on SE England and one on the Channel) were not seen by my station. Waiting for the third one which should approximately follow the orbit that gave me yesterday's signal echo, just a bit more towards the north, but approaching the GRAVES main lobe in the same way. Crossed fingers! Still waiting for those transits, but I'm monitoring the waterfall all the same. I lowered a bit the detection treshold so even if the pass is faint it should be able to capture it. Speaking of captures, that was a fantastic echo! Very big and much more detailed than what I managed to capture the other day. The frequency shift is clear as a day, and you're right, if that was a night time even it would have been very interesting to see, possibly even approaching fireballs brightness if the mass was around what we are talking about. I noticed that you have seconds in your detection text, together with a buch of nice info. Would it be possible to take a look at your conditional actions to see what needs to be done to obtain that, or if there is an online reference that I've not managed to find, could you please point it to me? Thank you! P.s. Got another big one last nigth, always fascinating!

An update from the ISS portion of the project, around 12:11pm today I got this track on the waterfall: It's very very familiar with what I've seen online with other artificial satellites radar detections, so I went on Heavens Above and checked my transits, and this is the one which likely generated the track: Now, the time on the waterfall indicates the first signals at around 12:11:00, and the final ones about 45 seconds later. From my position (checking also via Stellarium) the ISS was between +11 and +9 degrees above my horizon, above the northern portion of the Bay of Biscay, going over land over the city of Royan, on the Gironde estuary. Still unsure about the if this is truly the ISS, but I reckon that this far away an object so big would be one of the few to get such a track. Am I wrong in thinking this? Anyway, tomorrow there will be two more tracks which I'm deeming favorable, one at 08:08 on the Channel and one around 11:20 (which is the one having the best chances in my opinion). It would be interesting to crosscheck all these over time, and then create on a map an appropriate diagram of the hypotesized rear lobes, using these sightings as a concrete proof.

No worries, here is the same, with endless days and not even the nautical twilight to darken the nights. Waiting for the slightly dimmer evenings at the beginning of July to try and see some noctilucents, but other than that, even the surface of the Sun is not that interesting without spots. Luckily, there are many other things to follow, like this project! A very nice and big echo registered yesterday evening, it's always fascinating to just be able to see something like this from your home! Thank you for your input about the antenna, the guy I bought it from has done similar works with EME and he recommended it to me. He also said that he could build me a bigger one, but I don't have enough space in my garden for that 😆 It is proving very performing however, like you said, so for me it's good enough. Regarding the ISS, checked with HA and my live video stream for the early transit this morning, but no echoes coming from the waterfall. I'll try again for the other two passes this morning, but its orbit is shifting westward, so there will be a pause after this period of observations. I remember however that I had found (looking on google) a pdf with a particular study on the rear lobes of the GRAVES radar, and there was in there something akin to a mathematical proof that the lobes were indeed where we are hypothesizing them to be, since all the echoes kind prove what everyone is saying in this section of the board. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find it again (I should have saved it)...

Well, the northernmost transits that the ISS makes over the region can be seen straight overhead from southern England, so the Space Station should be able to transit (in some instances) in the area interested by the rear lobes of the GRAVES... now, to find those instances is the challenge, and to see if those instances themselves exist in the first place. As you said, it would be a nice way to capture the beam switching away from the main showers.

Thank you very much! Yes, that will be interesting to see indeed. For now I'm trying to monitor the various ISS passes, to try to understand from where I'm getting the signal (that is, if from the rear lobe or portions of the frontal one) based on the position of the Space Station. No luck in that as of now, but I managed to script SpectrumLab to take pictures of the meteor echoes above a certain value automatically , so at least now everything runs as I imagined. Some nice echoes however, even if we are not in a meteor shower, and good statistics of at least 4 to 10 meteors per hour more or less.

Firstly, thanks again to all the community, @BiggarDigger @wxsatuser @The Admiral for their precious advice and experience in the field! Now, a much deserved update, after two months and more of tests with both the RaspberryPi 3+ and my old Windows PC. I spent all of April in trying to receive something more than only the bigger meteors, which at the time were almost all that my setup would receive. Thus, being sparse and not frequent at all, I wasn't sure that my system was working properly. Unfortunately, no one with a good enough apparatus was near my location on the SpyServer AirSpy network, so no chances of making good comparisons, since I could not use the ones in southern England because from there is definitely easier to catch the GRAVES signals. Fortunately, however, a local radio amateur had an old 2m antenna that he didn't need anymore, and he lent it me for a bit during the first two weeks of May... well, that one changed everything! All of a sudden I was able to receive even the fainter meteors!! I don't have to tell you how great was that day! So, after I came back from a work trip, I bought myself this, a handmade antenna which is proving fantastic. Its specifications are the following (shortened): Free Space Forward Gain: 14.3 dBi Front to Back Ratio: 32 dB 3 dB Horizontal Beamwidth: 37° 3 dB Vertical Beamwidth: 40.2° Number of elements: 9 Element Diameter: 8 mm Aluminum tube Dipole Diameter: 8 mm Hard Copper tube Longest element: 1040 mm Boom Length: 4.67 m Boom Size: 30 x 30 mm + 20 x 20 mm Due to it being way bigger than the other, I had to move it, and since I had to do that... why don't move it in a better position? I acquired a heavy umbrella base, put a good 3 metres pine treated wooden pole on it, and put the antenna on the top, and moved it in my garden to have a better and clearer view of the horizon. Tried the new setup for anothe couple of weeks, switching between the PC and the RasPi3+, and I noticed that the last one often missed something, like every now and then it wasn't receiving anything while instead it should have shown some activity. I identified a problem with the Raspbian drivers of the AirSpy dongle, which (doing the opposite of the normal RTLSDR dongle) seem to disconnect it and reconnect it at random times, and I still haven't identified the cause. For now then, everything is working on the Win PC, on which I'm now trying a set of rules in SpectrumLab (feeded by SDR Sharp) to get nice automatic screenshots. These are from yesterday/last night's activity, I'd assume a normal night since we are far away from meteor swarms now. But well... it's possible to get the GRAVES radar even from here, in the far up north of Scotland!!

I am of your same opinion @BiggarDigger, even if there was some fortuitous coincidence that I was getting the scatter from the frontal lobes (very low possibilities here), they would have been transient, and definitely not a constant. These have to be the byproduct of the radar rear lobes. Your observation of the effect of the weather on signal propagation is spot on, and there is also the fact that we are receiving across the parallels, rather than along them, and it is a factor to consider. I remember, when I was doing dx back in the day, how easy was to talk with Russia or Japan from Italy, and how difficult was to do the same with Norway. The problem here is the calmer troposphere... as I am sure that everyone knows, Scotland will be Scotland in that regard ? For now, I will keep just taking screenshots continuously (unfortunately work doesn't give me lots of time until at least the end of the month) but I have saved every link you gave me, so I will test those as soon as I can. Still haven't tried to tell you the truth, but I plan to. However, I am still having problems in making it recognize the AirSpy, while it works pretty well with the normal dongle. However, I would have liked to use it in pair with SDR#, so for now still work to do. @wxsatuser Thank you very very much for all the screenshots, and for the time in finding and posting them! They will be great as a reference for what I will be able (hopefully) to see in the coming days/weeks. P.s. while I was writing... this beauty came up!

I'm very surprised too, and also very excited about this! I think that it could be a mix of rear lobes presence (as discussed multiple times on the forum) + some kind of good propagation because until yesterday I could not get any echo. There is also the fact that now I'm using SpecLab, and this is giving me echoes while the others didn't show any, especially the small ones. However yes, I am going to leave my old laptop on, and see the general behavior of the system. Unfortunately, I cannot use the Raspberry Pi anymore, since I could not manage to find a Linux version of SDR#. Because in that case, I would have happily and easily set-up everything on that platform and kept it running 24/7. Still thinking of buying a better antenna, but let's wait for after the Lyrids.