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.

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!

See the full gallery on Posterous

On the road back home after a most productive 3 days. All fired up to improve our water vapor measurements. I think Emily is as well.

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.

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.

See the full gallery on Posterous

NDACC Tuesday: starting on the contentious issues & details this morning. That's calibration!

Haha!

At the Network for Detection Water Vapor Lidar working group meeting. Ironically we don't have a laser pointer!

Fluid Dynamics Applied to Sociology

via comics.com

from the comic strip Frazz

PHD Comics: Ode to the L.A.S.E.R.

via phdcomics.com

PHD Comics is a riot, check it out at http://www.phdcomics.com. Via Robin.

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