Sky Quality: Cloudiness, Extinction, Contrails

User Requirements for an operational real time monitor (spontaneous contributions):

Scientific Requirements to a VLT Observing Conditions Monitor, H. Pedersen, Oct. 20, 1998. A small informal team was gathered at ESO and produced the First Ideas for Implementations of an All Sky Imager at Paranal (H. Pedersen, C. Cavadore, A. Wicenec, M. Sarazin).

Sky Monitoring from the Ground or from Space

Contrails and Astronomy, many links from the home page of H. Pedersen.

A movie has been prepared by H. Pedersen which demonstrates how clearly the clouds appear in the night sky using 1mn CCD exposures in the visible at La Silla Observatory.

A Report on A search for Possible Correlations between Photometric and Atmospheric Parameters, based on observations collected with the Swiss Telescope at La Silla and with the GOES8 Satellite; G. Meylan, VLT Report 17443-1679, 12/01/99.

1km resolution multispectral AVHRR NOAA-16 satellite images of Europe. An example of trails apparently due to air traffic.

Air Traffic above Astronomical Observatories

Report and Recommendations of IAU Commission 50 (Identification and Protection of Existing and Potential Observing Sites) on Interferences from aircrafts

Anthropogenic effects on Observing Conditions. I: Aviation, Report (ps file) by H. Pedersen , May 7, 1997.

Report on Airplane Sightings, May-October, 1997 (ps file) by H. Pedersen, Dec. 2, 1997.

CTIO records of contrails.

Mailing List: Contact interested people close to you, contact the whole group

Related Links:

Bibliography

7kx4k all-sky camera of Sonneberg Observatory (Germany)

Night and Day Automated All Sky Imager of the Marine Physical Laboratory (San Diego). See also the related site of the U.S. Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program

Antartica Dome C ICECAM

The IR cloud monitor at Apache Point Observatory.

Gemini plans of monitoring cirrus clouds.

CTIO International Conference on Light Pollution, La Serena, Chile, Tuesday 5th to Thursday 7th March 2002, PPT presentations.

Boston University Imaging Science Team All-Sky Camera.

ROTSE Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment.

Automated Optical Aircraft Spotter at the MMT site.

Satellite Detection of contrails over Europe from NOAA-12 satellite high resolution radiometer.

Vortex Experiment LIDAR profiling of aircraft plumes.

All Sky Imager by the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Images:

Example of aircraft trail temporal evolution (NASA Langley Research Center).

Picture of a contrail in daytime above the 3.6m telescope at La Silla (400kB gif)

Grandiose Karlsruhe Cloud Atlas

Send comments to <Marc.Sarazin@eso.org> Last update: December 14, 1998