Aerospace Imager in Australia

View some instabilities in the upper atmosphere
Sign
Our Airglow Imager is installed at the University of Adelaide Department of Physics and Mathematical Physics, Buckland Park Research Station just North of Adelaide in Australia.
The imager is installed inside an air conditioned building at the center of their MF Radar array.
Imager System
  • The Bonnet Dryer keeps the dome warm and fog free.
  • The Photometrics Quantix CCD Camera by Roper Scientific is thermo-electrically cooled to -50 Degrees C to allow us to take pictures of the very faint light from the upper atmosphere.
  • The Davis Instruments Weather Monitor measures various general weather values for the system.
  • The Cooler provides chilled fluid to the hot side of the thermo electric cooler inside the camera.
  • The Transformer converts the Australian 240 Volts AC to American 110 Volts AC.
  • The Macintosh G3 computer collects and processes all the data.
  • The 5.2 Gig Magneto Optical drive stores the data.
Imager
The imager is mounted to the ceiling beneath an acrylic dome.
  • The Filter wheel holds the 5 different filters we use to look at different colors of light.
  • The Davis Instruments Temperature & Humidity sensor is used to measure the Dew Point of the Camera. We keep the cooling water above this temperature to prevent condensation.
  • The Exhaust tube removes the heated air from the dome area so that it doesn't heat up the camera itself.
  • The Cooling Lines bring chilled fluid to the hot side of the thermo electric cooler inside the camera.
RoofTop RoofTop
On the roof we have shielded the sides of the dome to prevent stray light from cars or the city from entering the dome. We also installed a Davis Instruments rain collector and anemometer to get general weather information. There is a 3 field photometer experiment mounted next to our imager.
Dome
Looking down into the dome you can see the input and output ports for the bonnet dryer, the lens and the thermostat that controls the bonnet dryer. A thermistor is installed inside the thermostat so the computer can measure the dome temperature. Most things are painted flat black to prevent stray light reflections.