LUAstro Newsletter - October 2025
Including a recap of last year, an introduction to the new exec, and the installation of Lancaster's own radio observatory
Welcome to the astronomy society’s new newsletter, where we aim to keep staff and students informed of our nocturnal activities. Typically, we shall report on what the society has accomplished in the previous month, but for our first issue we will reflect on last year, 24-25.
A Recap of the 2024-2025 Academic Year
Michaelmas term
Aurorae - 10/10/2024
For the second time in the calendar year, Lancaster’s skies were graced with aurorae. As 2025 marks the peak of the 11-year solar cycle, we may yet see the lights return.
Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS - 24/10/2024
Orlando was able to observe comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan–ATLAS during its brief appearance in October.
Orion and Flame Nebulae - 27/11/2024
Orlando later captured this image of the Orion molecular cloud complex, revealing all of the faint dust with only three hours of data.
Lent term
Orion Nebula - 16/01/2025
The then first year Ianto Evans took his first astrophoto, centred on the Orion nebula.
Rosette Nebula - 29/01/2025
The then second year Finlay Daniel-MᶜKeigue produced a mosaic image of the Rosette nebula from 90 minutes of data.
Jodrell Bank - 23/02/2025
Thirteen members visited Jodrell Bank on our annual trip to the site. John Ray photographed their 7m telescope.
Avian Lunar Transit - 15/03/2025
In the morning following an observing night, Finlay filmed a pair of seagulls transiting the moon.
Summer term
Partial Solar Eclipse - 29/03/2025
We missed the recent lunar eclipse due to weather, but the cloud was thin enough to allow at least a distorted view of the partial solar eclipse.
The Red Arrows - 07/06/2025
The Red Arrows aerobatics display team flew past the university in June. All photos, as before, taken from the roof of the physics building.
Video from Finlay
Executive committee update
In July, we said goodbye to the society’s previous president, Orlando Prügel-Bennett, who graduated with a master’s degree in Astrophysics and contributed greatly to the society over the years.
For this year, John Ray, a 3rd year theoretical physicist, will be our president. Also on the committee, we have Aysha Faquiri as vice-president, a 2nd year physicist, Finlay Daniel-MᶜKeigue as treasurer, a 3rd year astrophysicist, Lina Andonova as socials & trips officer, 2nd year French & Mandarin student, and Ianto Evans as equipment officer, a 2nd year physicist.
Department Transmission
Existing within one of the UK’s leading astrophysics departments, we thought it was only right that each month we include a brief column about some of the exciting work being done here at Lancaster. If you would like to submit a piece for publication, reach out to us at info@luastro.space. This first transmission was written by Ianto, talking about the work he and fellow undergrad Joe Lane did with the space and planetary physics research group (SPPG) during a summer internship back in July.
Lancaster University Radio Jove installation
70 years ago, in an unassuming field 20-miles west of Washington, D.C., scientists Bernard Burke and Kenneth Franklin of the Carnegie Mellon Institute carefully adjusted some circuitry at the end of nearly 5 miles of wire suspended from a maze of wooden posts. Known as the Mills Cross, this simple radio observatory was intended to survey a narrow overhead strip of the sky for known astronomical radio sources such as the Crab Nebula. But after nearly three months of gathering data, a strong, regular source of interference was observed - one which did not correspond with any known astronomical radio emitter. The pair soon realised that this object was Jupiter, and that they were thus the first people to identify radio bursts from a non-solar celestial source.
Radio measurements have since been a key tool in uncovering the inner workings of Jupiter, and of several other planets in our solar system. Today, radio observations are essential for the furthering of our knowledge of planetary systems; the Square Kilometre Array, a radio interferometer currently being constructed in South Africa, will have 131,072 Christmas-tree shaped antennas and will cost over €1.9 billion. To mark 70 years since the discovery of Jupiter as a radio source, Lancaster’s Space & Planetary Physics group partnered with the Royal Astronomical Society, the Radio Communications Foundation, and University’s Faculty of Science & Technology to offer a pair of month-long internships to build and commission Lancaster’s own twin dipole radio telescope. Dubbed LUDO, the Lancaster Decametric Radio Observatory, the station has the possibility to be used as part of citizen science projects such as radio JOVE, monitoring Jovian and solar radio emissions, or as part of the WISPR network of ionospheric probing. Joe and I, working under Dr. Joe Kinrade spent several sweltering weeks in July on the Hazelrigg field site, just over the M6, battling horseflies and internet connectivity issues, erecting what look like two washing lines, which are in fact tuned to the 20.1 MHz frequency region. The antennas feed directly in to an SDR-1a software defined radio receiver, which in turn is connected to a mini-PC. The computer records and outputs this data to an archive, which researchers within the department can utilise for future studies. A YouTube livestream of the data coming in was also set up, which can be found here:
The internship provided us both with an amazing opportunity to experience the reality of research within the department, and we hope that the new instrument will continue to produce useful data which may be processed and used as part of some cutting-edge work!
Over and out - for now…
Thanks for taking the time to read this, we hope you found it both interesting and informative. We will be publishing the second of our newsletters on the 7th of November, so make sure to check your inboxes. In the meantime, you can keep up to date with what we’re doing as a society by following us on Instagram, or by joining our Discord server. Also, make sure to visit our new website, where you can find lots more information and recent photos. In the mean time, live long and prosper…