The UK Radio Astronomy Association (UKRAA) was set up in 2008 to promote the science of radio astronomy and all branches of radio astronomical research by designing, manufacturing and selling radio astronomy equipment for amateur astronomers. UKRAA is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation.

Solar image by Stephen Heliczer of Hertford Astronomy Group.

UKRAA is pleased to announce that the first batch of our new cosmic ray muon detectors will soon be available for sale on our website. We launched the detector at the Practical Astronomy Show in Kettering on Saturday where it generated a lot of interest.

We will be introducing three versions of the detector plus an enclosure:

  • A kit for self-assembly. This involves the soldering of small surface mounted devices (SMD).
  • A finished device. This will be tested and working with the operating software loaded.
  • An extruded aluminium enclosure suitable for a single device.

The kits include all the components including a polished drilled and tapped 5cm x 5cm x 1cm scintillator block. This block is BC-408 grade scintillator material which is optically matched to a large 6mm X 6mm silicon photo multiplier (SiPM) chip. This gives a 25cm3 collecting volume. Using a solid-state detector eliminates the high voltage needed for vacuum tube GM detectors and also gives six times the detection volume.

As supplied the detector will detect β, ϒ, and cosmic muons. To eliminate the random β and ϒ two detectors are required working in coincidence mode. Muon events are output as a CSV file on a micro-SD card or can be connected to a PC via USB.

A discount of 7.5% will be applied to purchases of a pair detectors.

For ongoing support there is a forum - https://groups.io/g/muondetector/messages where discussion, questions and ideas can be shared.

Revised 18th July 2024.

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