It has been a bit of an eventful day at AStrO.

We awoke thinking that today maybe the first day that we could see the full disk of the Sun. Keeyoon, Richard M. and I were looking forward to verifying the alignment of the PARIS instrument with the solar beam and making some test measurements with the DA8. Also Annemarie and Tobias were going to install the DOAS instrument in the dome since it had successfully completed its calibration measurements.

The solar measurements were scuttled by a cloud bank that was almost exactly the same height as the maximum solar elevation. While the Sun was up we saw fleeting glimpses near the edge of the clouds but nothing that we could follow with the solar tracker. Instead of solar measurements, the PARIS alignment was checked mechanically and an N2O gas cell was used for calibration measurements.

While the FTS team members spent the day staring at the clouds hoping that the Sun would come out, Annemarie had the first crisis of the ACE Arctic Validation Campaign when she went to install the DOAS spectrometer in the dome. Below is an excerpt from the e-mail she sent to Kim at 1 pm today explaining what happened. (Keep in mind that this all started at 8:15am on a Saturday morning.)

Annemarie wrote:
"I thought I'd send an update of our progress today. We arrived at AStrO this morning all set to put the spectrometer in the box and outside. The first step to that was finding one of the plexiglass domes to cover the opening to the lab inside. Probably something we should have done on day one! And that is when we encountered the first crisis of the campaign.

"We searched the entire building for the domes, and finally concluded they were nowhere to be found. We found out from the weather station that the University of Saskatchewan had been here in the summer to pick up some of their remaining equipment. A quick Canada 411 search led us to the home phone number of Prof. Emeritus Don McEwen. An 8:30 Central time phone call led us to the fact that the domes were flown out of Eureka last summer and are currently residing in sunny Saskatoon. Apparently they were made for the university, and since they thought they were the only ones using them, they took them away. I'm sure this all has to do with the karma of me saying more than once: "I don't see why we wouldn't be able to use one of the domes".

"After a few minutes of panic, our intrepid team of researchers set to problem solving. Since weight constraints left our weatherproof box in Toronto, we're pretty much stuck in the dome. The weather station, being the source of all things wonderful, luckily has sheets of plexiglass available. The current plan is to cut a hole in a sheet of plywood, attach the plexiglass, and use that in place of the dome. They're cutting us a piece right now, and shortly I'll be heading down to pick it up. If it won't allow UV to pass we have plan B, to use the plexiglass we already have on the box (this means a smaller window and less temperature control).

"We've located the plywood, and polyeurothaned it for weather protection (and, according to the label, beautification). We had another observatory wide search for a paint brush, and then Richard and I remembered Jeff destroyed it last year painting the makeshift train trunk box white. So Tobias and I played VanGogh and painted using foam and cloth.

"So in the end I think we're set back a day, since it will take us a bit of time to test the plexiglass and put everything together. Expect a few more updates before the weekend is done!" By the end of the day, a plywood hatch cover had been constructed with a plexiglas window installed. Unfortunately, the plexiglas obtained from the Weather Station did not transmit UV radiation so plan B had to be used (steal window from DOAS instrument housing). Annemarie sacrificed her fingernails to remove silicone sealant from the one piece of UV transmitting plexiglas that she has up here. Tomorrow will be spent installing the new "dome" and putting the DOAS in place under it.

With the challenges and disappointments for the DOAS and FTS teams, there was good news for the MAESTRO today. Clive was able to get the UV channel working again. All it took was a little cleaning and bit of TLC to do the trick. This frees up more of Clive's time to work on the sun tracker for the SPS and MAESTRO. Our day ended with the first sighting of Arctic wildlife. There were two arctic hare who came to visit the Weather Station during dinner. Rai, the officer in charge at the Weather Station, noticed that the motion sensor had been triggered by something. We all crowded around the window to see what was out there. An arctic hare is much larger than the small bunny that you have down south. Tobias and Keeyoon rushed outside (well as fast as you can when you have to put all your arctic gear on) to take pictures and ended up scaring the hares away. But I think they got some pictures.

It was a pleasant -44C this evening so Tobias, Keith and I took a walk to the airfield (about 1.5 miles away). It was good to get outside.

Best regards,
Kaley.