LMRO Menu

• Home
• Status
• Weather
• Jove
• Lightning
• Radiation
• Seismometer
• Solar
• All-Sky Camera
• Sky Quality Meter
• eCallisto
• Magnetometer
• Low Frequency Array
• Media

Welcome to the Leon Mow Radio Observatory

LMRO News!

Skymuster at LMRO
On Thursday the 20th October the Installers arrived to put in our new NBN Skymuster modem and dish. Michael hails from South Australia and has been working out of Bendigo installing NBN services to remote users. After a quick inspection we settled on the location of the modem and dish. They were a little unsure whether the roof would be stable enough (it wobbles a bit) but after adjusting the antenna it worked great with about a 17dB signal level.
Originally we'd asked to keep our old satellite service running in conjunction with the new Skymuster (and after installation the site was left running on the old service until we do a changeover) but late Thursday the old system turned off so we lost access to the site. We're working on getting the new NBN modem set up but its proving to be an interesting task. We have a working bee coming up on the 13th November where we'll be sorting out a lot of problems and probably create a few new ones.

A Forum for the Radio Astronomy Section
We've needed an on-line discussion area for a while now, considering all the different aspects to the RAS. To that end I've created a Forum just for RAS in the ASV Web Forum page. You must be logged in as an ASV member to reach this. Click the 'Chat' icon in the members area to access it.

Antarctic Web Cams!
Australian Antarctic Bases - Webcams and timelapse video
Syowa Antarctic Research Station Sky Camera.
Also our media page now has popup notes on some links to websites!

Trench Digging at LMRO
On Thursday 21st July we had a trench digger at LMRO to run pipes for cabling of the Magnetometer and the Low Frequency Array across the access road. A 30 meter trench was successfully dug, pipes laid and filled in. A similar trench was attempted for cabling to the 8 meter Dish but the ground was too soft and the trencher kept getting bogged. We'll give it another try when the weather improves.

The LMRO website http://lmro.org.au is now being redirected here. If you know of anything from the lmro.org.au website that is not here or something you would like to see on here please email me at webmaster@asv.org.au

We have received approval by the Bendigo Council for construction of our Dish Antenna so we'll be ramping up development on this website for the Dish! We have other projects in the pipeline including our much anticipated Magnetometer deployment and our own LMRO Low Frequency Array.

A quick run to LMDSS this weekend (18/6/16) resulted in successfully setting up the Satellite Modem. Its on test for a week before we switch from the 3G modem back to the satellite. The All-Sky camera is also working again after replacing the image capture device.

History

The Astronomical Society of Victoria, Radio Astronomy Section was created in the late 1980s by a small group of dedicated amateur astronomers with an interest in Radio Astronomy. The members worked on projects at a country property in Officer, outer eastern Melbourne. The group then transitioned to their new home at the Leon Mow Dark Sky Site (LMDSS) near Heathcote, central Victoria.

Development

The last ten years has seen a great amount of activity at the LMDSS.

• Delivery of a shipping container and subsequent conversion to a Science Laboratory and Radio Shielded Room.
• Radio Jove Dipole Antenna installation.
• Purchase and assembly of an 8.5 meter aluminium dish antenna with plans in the works for the mounting and control of the dish

Science Data