© CC-BY-SA 4.0 CAMRAS
For the volunteers of CAMRAS, the detection is a breakthrough: it is the first time that a flash from an FRB has been observed with the Dwingeloo Telescope, which was built in 1956. The activity of the source is relatively rare: in the twenty observation days since January, the first flash has now been found after nearly a hundred hours of observation and over five terabytes of data. The precise time of detection is 2024-03-13 11:02:06.397 UTC.
What makes the detection with the Dwingeloo Telescope even more special is that the receiver, built by radio amateurs, were not specifically optimized for receiving broadband signals like those from FRBs. This also means that the receivers can still be improved to better receive the signals in the future.
After detecting the first FRB independently, CAMRAS joined an existing collaboration with other 'small' European dishes, specifically the one in Stockert, which is similar to the Dwingeloo telescope in many respects (opened in 1956, 25 meter diameter, operated by volunteers).
When comparing data, several more bursts were found in the Dwingelo data: 2024-03-12 10:43:24.188 UTC, 2024-03-13 09:18:21.738 UTC, and 2024-03-22 13:39:27.687.
The first Dwingeloo burst was featured in Astronomer's Telegram 16565 by Omar Ould-Boukattine et al. about the combined monitoring of FRB2024114A.
Thanks to all CAMRAS volunteers who made this detection possible, especially the observers. So far, these have been Hans van der Meer, Roel Ovinge, Harm Munk, Simon Bijlsma, Marc Wolf, Tjipke de Beer, Gerard Boons, Paul Boven, and Michael Sanders.