February 22 2009

A glimpse of sunshine

It was another great day at Eureka today. Though the morning started off cloudy, Felicia, Rodica and I were able to make some progress with the Bruker and PARIS optics using a high powered spotlight in place of the sun. When the sunlight actually did show through the clouds (faded and strange shaped and not bright enough for the tracker to hold, but visible all the same), we were able to finalize things, and are really happy with the new arrangements. I think both instruments will do well with this new set-up. Cristen also had a successful day - the PEARL-GBS continued to run without any communication errors on her personal computer, and the complete reinstall of the PEARL-GBS computer from her ghost back-up went smoothly. Back at the weather station, Volodya and Tom dismantled the Mark-5 Brewer #69 from its normal home by the weather office, then  bought it to PEARL, where we enjoyed setting it up beside Brewer #007 by the rays of the setting sun in ideal still and warm (-28C) conditions.

As the afternoon went on, the sky overhead got clearer, and a note from Emily and Bernard tells me they had a really great night of observing. Unfortunately their ozonesonde wasn't quite so successful - while the launch and flight went smoothly, a computer crash lost the data. Hopefully our next sonde, which will be the first of the daily campaign launches, will go better!

Bec


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