Monday, December 27, 2010
My new filing system to start 2011
"wake of the flood" I'm getting rid of a lot of accumulated academic detritus. Can't believe how much unnecessary paper gets sent to me.
Monday, December 20, 2010
ISSI meeting photo opp: Lidar heads of state :-)
Here’s a photo Boyan took of the ISSI NDACC lidar algorithm working group. After the marathon that is the AGU Fall Meeting, ISSI seems so long ago (except to my body which is rebelling against the latest time zone change). You can see some more snaps at here.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Hey #agu10. First pictures of the new PCL laser!
Litron is almost done with our new laser, which promises 1000mJ at 30 Hz at 532 nm. I can't believe how compact it is compared to our old system. What every Crow wants for Christmas!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Prost!
A big smile and a tip of the glass to you all after a long day of spirited discussions. From the team dinner at the ISSI 2010 Team on the Critical Assessment and Standardized Reporting of Vertical Filtering and Error Propagation in the Data Processing Algorithms of the NDACC Lidars (boy do we need a better acronym!).
Too bad the bears didn't join us, it must have been cold and dark in their den.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
It's pie day at the lab!
As a tip of our hat to US Thanksgiving we're having our second pi(e) day for Jaya. And congrats to Emily who successfully finished her comprehensive exam today!
Monday, November 22, 2010
Cranes/large telescope/flying laser tables, movie of the Purple Crow Lidar's move to our new observatory online. Check it!
A summer of hard work and we have moved from the Delaware Observatory to our new facility, Echo Base. Our next step in the project is getting our new laser installed, which we hope to have done before year's end. We'll keep you posted!
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/17037859 w=500&h=283]
Monday, November 15, 2010
Quiet. Too quiet. Just the calm before the storm.
After a rush of preparation this summer to get the new building ready to go we have run into a string of delays which have keep us from filling the night skies over London with our green beam. Though by August’s end we had our stuff ready to go in the new building, there were some issues with some of the building sub-systems that kept us from being able to get the telescope going, that have only recently been (mostly) resolved. Our current hang up is waiting for the delivery of our powerful new laser. We don’t want to set up the old laser for a short period, as the differences in the beam positioning would require more work than we thought would be worth it (given the original delivery schedule). So we are busy as ever but not quite lidar-ing yet. But stay tuned, we are hoping things will be happening sooner rather than later.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Encore des loups
Emily says a close up goodbye to the Eureka wolves after a highly successful trip to the RMR lidar.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Water Survey
More from Emily's Eureka trip; including what happens to water at -40 C when you toss some in the air.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Puppies!
Emily is a PCL grad student currently working with the Dalhousie RMR lidar in Eureka. The above is from Emily's Arctic Adventure blog.
Look closely
Emily is a PCL grad student currently working with the Dalhousie RMR lidar in Eureka. The above is from Emily's Arctic Adventure blog.
Appearances can be deceiving
Emily is a PCL grad student currently working with the Dalhousie RMR lidar in Eureka. The above is from Emily's Arctic Adventure blog.
Shiny
Emily is a PCL grad student currently working with the Dalhousie RMR lidar in Eureka. The above is from Emily's Arctic Adventure blog.
0pal, bigger and better
Emily is a PCL grad student currently working with the Dalhousie RMR lidar in Eureka. The above is from Emily's Arctic Adventure blog.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Emily's Arctic Adventure: Guess who’s back (and I don’t mean me)
Emily is up North again! Read her blog posts from the top of the world, Eureka, Nunavut: arctic-emily.blogspot.com. Today’s post is about seeing an old friend from Eureka who has moved on to a better place.
A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Upper Atmosphere - NASA Science
via science.nasa.gov
Interesting synopsis of a recent Emmert et al paper in Geophys. Res. Lett. My bet is changes in upper atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are probably not the answer (as the authors also state). I'm wondering if we are over estimating the amount of EUV flux, and that the Sun is just being particularly lazy this cycle (hence the low spot numbers, etc). Thoughts?
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
AMAZING! Homemade spacecraft sends back limb images from the stratosphere.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/15091562 w=500&h=283]
via vimeo.com
Luke Geissbuhler and crew developed a small payload to allow video to be sent back from a balloon. They managed to fly into the stratosphere and image the limb. Plus they successfully recovered the payload. You folks are awesome!
Friday, October 1, 2010
Feature of the Week: Conferator - a ubiquitous, BibSonomy-based conference service
BibSonomy is a way awesome way for your research group to share a publication database, particularly if you like to use bibtex. Highly recommended and free. This short article gives a glimpse of the future of networking at conferences, and finally I will be able to remember who I talked to about what!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Recent EOS article on our pyrocb results
Here is some more media coverage of our Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society “cover” paper due out September, from AGU’s EOS magazine. Fascinating to see smoke from a fire in Western Canada forced into the stratosphere and carried all the way to Ontario.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
What a day: out of Delaware and into the new Observatory
OMG, so much to do, does anyone remember where all the cables go? The big table on the truck is the 1700 lb laser table, and you can see the mirror off to the right as it came off the truck. Threatening but didn’t rain, which would have pooched lots of electronics and the air bearing for the liquid mirror.
The new observatory needs a name, any ideas?
Monday, June 28, 2010
Ingenuity is often inversely proportional to budget! KC builds a full size planetarium for < $28k.
It’s ‘a new beginning’ for planetarium
By MATT CAMPBELL
The Kansas City Star
ALLISON LONG/Kansas City Star
Jeff Rosenblatt, director of Science City, acknowledges that the Arvin Gottlieb Planetarium at Union Station has had trouble. But with a new projection system (here showing Jupiter) in place, better days are coming for the often overlooked attraction, he believes. Expect more elaborate shows on the 60-foot dome, on astronomy and other subjects — and they can be made to mesh with other programs.
"factbox" -->Breaking News
Sanders, Barnes push charter changes
Many ramp closures planned for I-635 this week
New I-470 interchange in Lee’s Summit to be completed today
Justices extend gun owner rights nationwide
Police investigating suspicious death near Swope Park
KC man injured in early morning crash along I-29
Highway patrol plans 10-mile Trooper enforcement this holiday weekend
NBC Action Weather | Cooler and less humid today
Three suffer non-life-threatening injuries in early morning crash
Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia dead at 92
Three hurt while tinkering with fireworks
ATV crash kills wildlife officer
After threat, passengers kept on plane that started at KCI
Former counselor charged with having sex with teen
Olathe police investigate after woman found dead
7-year-old among those hurt in crash near Gardner
Teen killed after high-speed chase identified
Royals rout Cardinals 10-3 for I-70 Series victory
Cat hoarder pleads not guilty to charges
Man killed in ATV crash for second death at festival
With the star ball banished, the sky’s the limit now for the Gottlieb Planetarium.
A new 360-degree and 3-D projection system now operating in the funny-shaped building next to Union Station is hoped to bring back audiences and send them to the moon and beyond.
And the best part is that the system was assembled by local talent at a fraction — no, a fraction of a fraction — of what it would have cost to purchase from a planetarium vendor.
“We now, for the first time, have the capacity for shows that the public will want to come see,” said Tim Kristl, vice president of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City.
It will be easier to create planetarium programs that tie in with Science City and with traveling exhibits at Union Station. They can also be customized to match school curricula.
“Modern planetariums are able to reach out and away from just astronomy,” said Damon Bradshaw, Science City’s planetarium specialist. “They can get into history and culture and even biology and chemistry. This sort of projection system gives us the capability to do that.”
Local astronomers worked with Science City and Union Station to devise the new system, along with financial assistance from the Arvin Gottlieb Charitable Foundation.
The planetarium opened a decade ago with a traditional star-ball projection system, which was essentially a hollow sphere with a bright light inside and holes to cast a star field onto the dome above. But it was already old when it was installed and never really worked properly.
“It’s been a monster to keep running,” said Jeff Rosenblatt, director of Science City.
Last fall the star ball broke for the last time and officials began looking for a modern, digital system. The astronomical society, which had had a strained relationship with previous Union Station management, approached new station CEO George Guastello about a partnership.
Together, they consulted vendors who either had no experience with such a large planetarium — Union Station’s is 60 feet in diameter — or were too expensive.
One price quoted was $766,000, Rosenblatt said.
Obviously, for cash-strapped Union Station, that was out of the question.
But research by Rick Henderson, an electronics professor and member of the astronomical society, along with expertise gleaned from the professional vendors and from local company Harvest Productions, led to a much cheaper solution.
They ended up buying, on their own, an extremely bright projector and a delicately polished, curved mirror that was custom-made in Australia. They coupled them with a Mac Pro computer and special software to create a system that, they say, is every bit as capable as the more expensive ones.
The price: about $27,000.
“The results are way better than we expected,” Henderson said. “Anything you can show on the computer you can show on the dome.”
Bradshaw explained that the digital images are intentionally distorted so that when they are projected onto the mirror and reflected back on the dome, they appear in proper shape and proportion.
Bradshaw and Rosenblatt said many smaller planetariums have similar systems, but it is unique for one as large as Science City’s.
Because it was assembled in-house, the system does not have a name. So they dubbed it the BRT, for the three men who were most instrumental in putting it together: Bentley Ousley and Rick Henderson of the astronomical society and Tom Deffet, a software writer.
The Gottlieb Foundation gave the planetarium $30,000 late last year and will donate up to $100,000 more this year. That money will help staff the planetarium and subsidize school field trips, Guastello said.
The planetarium’s new system currently shows just one program about the history of the telescope. But officials plan to expand offerings soon with other shows purchased commercially or produced in-house.
The astronomical society will create a series of shows about the night sky as seen from Kansas City during different seasons; it is working on one about the fall stars now. Images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other NASA products are in the public domain and available for free.
The planetarium may be able to tap into live cable feeds, whether from NASA or from a solar eclipse happening on another side of the planet.
The dome is also capable of showing theatrical movies, and the space can be rented for private parties or events. It recently was host to a New Age music concert and light show.
Henderson said the Gottlieb Planetarium has suffered from management, equipment and money problems over the years.
“I’m very hopeful this is going to be the turnaround,” he said. “I’m hopeful this is a new beginning.”
About the planetarium
The Gottlieb Planetarium at Union Station offers shows Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $6, or $5 with Science City admission. Call 816-460-2020 or go to www.unionstation.org for more information.To reach Matt Campbell, call 816-234-4905 or send e-mail to mcampbell@kcstar.com.
via kansascity.com
via the twitter feed of @centauri_dreams
Friday, June 25, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
CBC News - Toronto - Earthquake rocks Ontario, Quebec AND London!
A 5.5-magnitude earthquake has hit Ontario, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, with tremors reportedly felt as far away as Montreal, Boston and Cleveland.
The first tremor hit at 1:41 p.m. ET Wednesday.
Buildings in Toronto and Ottawa were evacuated in the minutes following the tremors.
Your Report
Do you have footage of the quake? Send us your photos and video by clicking here.
"Earthquakes across Eastern Canada are definitely rare, but we do have them," said Johanna Wagstaffe, a CBC seismologist and meteorologist.
"There are small fault lines along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario" and a "relatively active fault line that runs parallel to the St. Lawrence Valley," she said just minutes after the quake.
The last major earthquake on that fault line measured 5.4 magnitude in 1998, she said.
Office workers shaken
Kathleen Sullivan was working on the eighth floor of an office in downtown Toronto when the quake hit.
"It was very peculiar because we could actually se
'The bed just started to move side to side.'—Darren Bonnici, Windsor, Ont., residente the plants on our window shelf shaking. By the time we gathered in the hall and figured out it wasn't our imagination, it stopped. But it was easily a minute of things shaking."
The quake was felt as far south as Windsor, Ont., along the Canada-U.S. border.
"I was just laying in bed .... and the bed just started to move side to side ... just gently," said Darren Bonnici, who lives on the 10th floor of an apartment building along the city's riverfront.
"Sort of, almost like a mother would rock a baby in a crib," said Bonnici, adding the feeling lasted for about five seconds. "I thought right away it must have been an earthquake.
View Larger Map
via cbc.ca
Holy smokes! I was in my office on the 3rd floor meeting with Frans and felt the P wave then the S wave, the water in the cooler was shaking! He asked if that was an earthquake (they are doing heavy renovation on our building, I thought this was the reno) and I mentioned how I'd been in several in Alaska and it was similar. Didn't realize how similar!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Lidar Building is taking shape!
Here’s a picture of Cass indicating where the lidar building is (if you weren’t sure) and another showing that it is indeed taking shape. We are meeting today to coordinate more of the million things that have to be done for the move next month.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Pictures from the Gordon Shepherd Symposium
Just got some pictures from the Gordon Shepherd Symposium the other week, one of me in full ramble during my lecture and a prize pix of me with Gordon. BTW if you are interested in the history of space science, you may want to check out Gordon’s recent book Canada’s Fifty Years in Space available here: http://amzn.to/9GcGax.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Brrr: The AO is way low | UCAR Magazine
via www2.ucar.edu
This short non-technical article is an excellent one on the Arctic Oscillation, which has a major influence or our weather in much of North America and highlights the coupling between the upper atmosphere and lower atmosphere.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
At Space Science Symposium celebrating 50 years of Gordon Shepherd's research
Gordon Shepherd is a world leader in the field of Space Science. I'm at York University in TO today attending talks celebrating his many research achievements in atmospheric and auroral physics, as well as optics.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Photos of progress on the new lidar observatory
Wow, that was a pleasant surprise to see today, the building is beginning to look like the architect's drawings. Maybe it will really be done July 1!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
In the language of the Nation's capital
Lidar wv calibration Day 3: Dave you misquoted me. I didn't say i wanted to do as "little as necessary" I said as "much as necessary." But your change to "whatever is necessary" works! Think I have been near the political centre of the universe to long.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Visit to Howard University Atmospheric Research Facility
After this morning's heavy discussions on Raman lidar water vapor calibration issues, we had a quick lunch and hopped on a bus to see Howard University's Atmospheric Research facility in nearby Beltsville. Through their own development efforts and partnerships with other government/private groups they have assembled a unique set of atmospheric monitoring equipment, including their wind and water vapor lidar systems. The water vapor system is shown in some pictures of myself, Emily and the Principal Investigator, Prof. Demetrius Venable (shown explaining the calibration system he and his students have developed). Impressive! Hearing the talks is good, but nothing beats seeing the system in action to appreciate the challenges involved.
Most of the graduate students were not around, because there are all on a cruise across the Atlantic! No, Howard is not the nicest school in the world to their students, and before you ask Purple Crow grad students, these folks are working 24/7 taking atmospheric measurements on a research vessel. They will be back at month's end and spend the rest of summer taking measurements with the equipment we saw today.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Haha!
At the Network for Detection Water Vapor Lidar working group meeting. Ironically we don't have a laser pointer!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Hello World
Hello from all of us at the Purple Crow Lidar (shown below are Frans, Blessing, Emily, Jaya and Robin). This is an exciting time for us, what with the all the usual fun plus an amazing summer that is scheduled to give us a new building and the most significant equipment upgrades since our initial operation in 1993. So we just had to get us one of them b-logs to tell you all about it! I'm giving Posterous a try so subscribe to us there (or follow our RSS feed), see us on Facebook ("The Purple Crow Lidar") or tweet us at http://twitter.com/purplecrowlidar.
To learn more about the PCL or download publications check out our web page: http://pcl.physics.uwo.ca.
Next up for us: the NDACC Water Vapor Lidar Working Group meeting.
Bob
Friday, January 29, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
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