Space weather has long been an interest of mine, and of many of the students passing through my astronomy courses. The interaction of the Sun, it solar wind and our Earth’s magnetic field are just fascinating. Living in high latitudes, we sometimes are given the pleasure of seeing some aurora. In collaboration with the University of New Hampshire, we have taken on the building of a 3 axis fluxgate magnetometer. The unit is from a kit which you can check out here at the SAM-III Magnetometer page. If you are not quite so keen on soldering small components (only a few are surface mount), then you can also order a pre-built one…. but it costs more.

Here is our progress to date in photos.

Parts and pieces! This will be the magnetometer when it is all put together!

This is the primary user interface: a keyboard of 4 buttons. These are the only surface mount items to worry about.

This is the primary user interface: a keyboard of 4 buttons. These are the only surface mount items to worry about.

Soldering the resistors onto the board. Next will come the capacitors and other parts.

Resistors and capacitors in place.

Resistors and capacitors in place along with voltage regulators. Here we are ready to apply power for the first time to see if the boards voltages are within tolerances.