STEL Digital Camera

Location

The digital camera is located in a hut at the EISCAT Tromsø radar site in Norway (69.6º N, 19.2º E). The map is available to see where Tromsø is. The hut is located a few hundreds meter far from the radar.

Picture: Digital camera is installed in this hut (top picture) together with other optical instruments. In the transparent dome on the roof the camera is set looking vertical (bottom picture).

Image

Night-time sky images are automatically taken every ~1 minute with the digital camera, which fixed to look at the zenith of the EISCAT Tromsø radar site. The camera does not have filter to select wavelength of light. The digital camera has been operated in only winter (from early October to early March). More detail information on the operation period can be checked here. The movies, which can be downloaded from here, were made by combining these images. At the right-bottom corner of the movie image the time-stamp is shown in UT. The format is “Day/Month/Year Hour:Minute:Second”.

Some images may have a red spot near the right edge of the image as seen in the picture shown below. This is a reflection from the warning light on top of the tower near the optical hut.

Scientific objective

Scientific objective of the digital camera is to monitor weather and auroral activity in winter above the Tromsø radar site. It is important experimental information to support research activities using other optical instruments and the EISCAT radar. Thus some images may not be suitable for other objectives.

It may be difficult to identify weather at night because some weak aurora looks like clouds. If so you may check stars. If you cannot find any starts in the picture, there should be thin clouds, which cut star lights before reaching down to the ground.

For more information please contact to Dr. Shin-ichiro OYAMA (soyama @ stelab.nagoya-u.ac.jp)