On Wednesday February 27th, the temperatures at Eureka held steady around -39 degrees C with calm winds, while up at the PEARL Ridge Lab, temperatures were a little bit cooler at -42 degrees C, with 5 knot winds at 9am that gradually died down over the course of the day. It was another sunny day with clear skies, and we had a total of 5 hours and 30 minutes of sunlight (approximately 17 minutes more than yesterday). If the trend of clear, sunny skies continues the team should be able to make its first measurements with the newly installed Pandora tomorrow, and the Bruker 125HR when its alignment and cell tests are completed in a few days.
Today in the IR lab, Sebastien and Tyler installed the new entrance window and two aperture wheels on the Bruker 125HR. They then performed a new set of N2O cell tests, as well as a background measurement to check the alignment of the instrument after the installation. The first cell test was performed using the 1 mm aperture and the second using the 1.15 mm aperture, and the results were then analyzed using Linefit 14.5. It was found that the modulation efficiency with the 1mm aperture dropped from ~1 to 0.5, highlighting the need for a full alignment of the instrument. With the help of Pierre, they spent the latter half of the afternoon preparing the laser and the system of mirrors required for the alignment process, which will occupy much of their day tomorrow.
Kristof and Pierre spent the morning scouting a spot on the roof for the new Pandora spectrophotometer, and then installed the mount base in the spot they selected in the south-eastern corner of the roof. It was decided that the spectrometer and the computer would be placed on the UV-Vis lab mezzanine, and most of the team was involved in dragging a table up there. Kristof then set up the instrument, while Pierre made a new inlet for the cables. They then installed the tracker, with help from Tyler, and a quick test revealed that the Pandora works perfectly. Kristof is hoping for a sunny day tomorrow to align the tracker and start measurements.
Tom made use of the better weather and lower winds today, and with the help of Ali and John they installed the solar pointing system for the SPS on the roof. He made some adjustments to the software to align it such that it was pointing at the sun in azimuth. After lunch, the SPS was mounted on the elevation axis aligned toward sun, and measurements were started by running a macro command file which communicates a sequence of operations to the instrument. The system was left to operate throughout the afternoon and overnight. The data collected will be analyzed tomorrow to ensure that everything is operating properly. Tom then gave a short tutorial to Ali on the retrieval algorithm used by the SPS instrument.
Xin spent the morning at the PEARL Ridge Lab, where he collected snow samples from a nearby sampling site. Xin then set-up his sampling tray on the roof of PEARL with the aim of collecting diamond dust. In the afternoon, Xin, John and Alexey visited the two sampling sites west of the Weather Station and collected more snow samples, followed by a visit to SAFIRE station, where Alexey tested his drone and gave a demonstration of its operation.
Cheers,
Tyler Wizenberg
[On Behalf of the 2019 Canadian Arctic ACE/OSIRIS Validation Campaign team]
* Instrument Status *
Bruker FTIR: Offline (cell measurements)
EM/27 SUN FTIR: In transit to Eureka