Ben Clewer
LightNews LightNews
banner
benclewer.bsky.social
Ben Clewer
@benclewer.bsky.social
400 followers 74 following 92 posts
Space Weather Research Fellow at Surrey Space Centre.
Aviation radiation safety. Instrument systems engineering.
Hobby wargamer and Ipswich Town #itfc fan. He/Him. PhD
Posts Replies Media Videos
benclewer.bsky.social
Ongoing solar radiation storm originating at 10:15 this morning. Initial airborne data and model results are indicating this was an ICAO severe radiation event for aviation.

Airborne instruments are still operating to collect the end of the event
#spaceweather #aviation #avgeek
November 11, 2025 at 3:23 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
I hope everyone at #ESWW2025 has a lovely time. Sadly the travel was too prohibitive for us at Surrey for the limited sessions related to our area.

Enjoy the scenery and I hope the aurora shows up!
October 27, 2025 at 10:22 AM
benclewer.bsky.social
Safe to say that the AI spaghetti detection still needs work for my printer...
September 21, 2025 at 2:12 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Tonight was a good night to be an #itfc fan 😃
September 12, 2025 at 9:37 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Sadly this feels like a backwards step for space in the UK. Just as the rest of the world is pushing on, the UK again halts itself. Black arrow history repeating again...

BBC News - UK independent space agency scrapped to cut costs
www.bbc.com/news/article...
UK independent space agency scrapped to cut costs
Britain's space agency is set to be scrapped - a scientist fears the UK space sector could fall behind as a result
www.bbc.com
August 20, 2025 at 7:17 AM
benclewer.bsky.social
On the pitch at Portman Rd for Ed Sheeran! It's great to be back in Town
#itfc
July 13, 2025 at 5:43 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Not much to share at the moment, but lots going on project wise behind the scenes. However, I thought the internet might enjoy these two adorable pups who keep me on my toes at home.
Lemon cocker spaniel lying on the grass with a tennis ball Tan colored Romanian street dog, stood on the grass at the park, wearing a blue harness and smiling
July 10, 2025 at 9:16 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Currently on what is becoming a regular trip to CERN to test our SAIRA atmospheric radiation instruments in the beam facilities here. They give a representative of the enhanced radiation environment that aircraft would see in large solar radiation storms.
#spaceweather #avgeek #radiationprotection
May 24, 2025 at 10:44 AM
benclewer.bsky.social
Last week I had the fun of travelling to Shetland to install a new compact neuton monitor at the @metoffice.bsky.social site in Lerwick. This monitor will be essential to the UK's #spaceweather resilience as it'll provide important radiation flux data to #aviation and ground based infrastructure
April 29, 2025 at 11:01 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
2nd leg of the journey to Lerwick and a nice little ATR42 this time.

Going up to install a Neutron Monitor at the @metoffice.bsky.social weather station
April 22, 2025 at 3:36 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Had a day for me today at #Salute52

It was great to get back to gaming and shows after a few years away. Had fun smashing some Roman Legions in Strength and Honour and bought way too much paint...
#wargaming
April 12, 2025 at 6:22 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Ipswich finally get to winning ways in 2025. Almost certainly too late for survival but another small inch of hope to cling on to! #itfc
April 2, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by Ben Clewer
vincentledvina.bsky.social
The SpaceX fram2 mission that will send humans over the poles for the first time has LAUNCHED! This is relevant to our community since Jannicke Mikkelsen, one of the astronauts on board, will be filming the aurora over the north and south poles!

#heliophysics
April 1, 2025 at 4:36 AM
Reposted by Ben Clewer
ryanjfrench.bsky.social
BOOM! What a beautiful #SolarFlare (just now). This eruptive event reached the X-class level, and produced this stunning coronal mass ejection. The flare source region will rotate to face Earth in the coming week. Further strong solar activity is likely! #spaceweather
March 28, 2025 at 3:56 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Last week at the US Space Weather Workshop, I handed over a balloon SAIRA instrument to from the Surrey Space Centre to @knmi.bsky.social

It's excellent to see growing international interest in our instruments and space weather radiation measuring capabilities.

#spaceweather #radiationprotection
March 26, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Ben Clewer
mathewjowens.bsky.social
There are 3 space-weather posts opening up at the UK Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre. Please circulate - it would be great to further strengthen the MOSWOC team.

careers.metoffice.gov.uk/join-us/sear...
careers.metoffice.gov.uk/join-us/sear...
careers.metoffice.gov.uk/join-us/sear...
Met Office Careers
careers.metoffice.gov.uk
March 25, 2025 at 9:12 AM
benclewer.bsky.social
Great views of the aurora for the entire flight home. Safely back at Heathrow!

#aurora #spaceweather
March 22, 2025 at 10:24 AM
benclewer.bsky.social
Onboard and hoping we make it to Heathrow
March 22, 2025 at 12:49 AM
benclewer.bsky.social
#wingfriday from last week. Sadly the incident at Heathrow looks like my Friday flight home is in trouble...
March 21, 2025 at 6:11 AM
benclewer.bsky.social
On an afternoon break from Space Weather Workshop and I'm currently sat near the top of the 1st Flatiron
March 18, 2025 at 9:34 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Here's my #wingfriday flying out of Keflavik last weekend #aviation #avgeek
March 14, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Ben Clewer
adrianaguatame.bsky.social
A friend included this anti-acknowledgement section on her PhD thesis. She also added the proposition: “Systematic bullying and undermining of girls and women in STEM starts early on and is the reason why they do not stay in science and related fields.”
Absurd we still need to go through this
🧪👩‍🔬
There have been people less than helpful in my journey here. I wanted to acknowledge those too, bc I know I am not unique in this experience. No thank you to the physics study assoc that made me sing songs about how women couldn't study physics without sleeping with the professor, the day I stepped into university life. No thank you to the 5th year physics student that decided to assign me a stripper name within the first minute of meeting me in the physics coffee corner in my first year. No thank you to the technician that was responsible for onboarding me on the use of the cluster in my third year who raised his eyebrows and asked me if that meant I was some sort of computer girl. No thank you to the senior researcher that sent me utterly inappropriate texts after a conference, then proceeded to apologise months later by telling me they had not been meant for me anyway so no hard feelings remain hopefully And no thank you to him for attending every conference I've been to since. No thank you to the people who told me that it was surprising that I was doing a PhD since I was a girl. No thank you to the man who mistook me for a coffee lady at a conference, and after having to correct him two times that I did not work there, responded with you should consider it. No thank you to the researcher that asked me what I was wearing underneath my outfit during a conference. No thank you to the physicist who declared to a room full of other physicists that biologists don't know how to design an experiment. No thank you to the people who have called me scary instead of strong and intimidating instead of intelligent. And finally, no thank you to the exec board of the TU Delft, whose knee-jerk reaction to being held up a mirror about the social safety at the university, was to sue the party holding up the mirror instead of looking at the problems they highlighted. ... You have made me feel like I do not belong in science & I cannot forgive you for that.
March 6, 2025 at 4:40 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Some better photos from last night, courtesy of our tour guide!

#aurora #northernlights #spaceweather #iceland
March 6, 2025 at 7:56 PM
benclewer.bsky.social
Had some great views of the aurora tonight up in Iceland. Lucky that the clouds stayed away from our area. Always great for a space weather scientist to see the lights and I would stay out all night if possible!

#spaceweather #aurora
March 6, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Reposted by Ben Clewer
mathewjowens.bsky.social
An exciting opportunity here to build a new data assimilation scheme for the unique (but underused) heliospheric imager data. This could be huge for space-weather forecasting.
March 3, 2025 at 3:55 PM