EUCARA-2018 conference report

On Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 September, the third European conference on Amateur Radio Astronomy, EUCARA-2018, took place at the Astropeiler Stockert Radio Telescope in Germany. There we received a warm hospitality from the Stockert volunteers. There were 59 participants from 8 different countries, including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

From CAMRAS the following volunteers participated: Paul Boven, Simon Bijlsma, Frans de Jong, Jan van Muijlwijk and Harm Munk. Some were accompanied by their partner.

Eleven participants gave presentations about their astronomy projects. Frans and Simon gave a lecture about the development of the meteor scatter webSDR and the detection results with this webSDR receiver. Paul gave a presentation on the new frontend in development of the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope and on VLBI with the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope.

The program and the downloadable presentations are on https://astropeiler.de/european-conference-amateur-radio-astronomy-2018.

On Saturday afternoon there was an excursion to the nearby gigantic 100-meter Effelsberg Radio Telescope and the adjacent LOFAR field.

On Saturday evening the day was evaluated while enjoying a conference dinner and ideas were exchanged about the common hobby of amateur radio astronomy.

On Sunday, Prof. Dr. Michael Kramer from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy gave a lecture on Einstein’s general theory of relativity and how the astronomers at the Max Planck Institute today use these insights to explain the phenomena observed in the universe, such as gravitational waves, black holes and neutron stars.

The Sunday afternoon was reserved for a personal meeting between the participants and the Stockert volunteers and to enjoy the beautiful weather and the view of the beautiful landscapes in the Eifel.

Worth mentioning is the impressive poster session of Stockert: with several tiny antennas and the Adalm SDR set they were able to detect hydrogen in the Milky Way.