ESO WIDE REVIEW, April 2000


Astroclimatology of ESO Sites	ESO WIDE REVIEW M. Sarazin, April 2000, 10/10

Astroclimatology of ESO Sites

ESO WIDE REVIEW

M. Sarazin, April 2000, 10/10

In addition to seeing and meteorology accessible via the DMD Archive Ambient Server, the ASM shall also provide information on sky photometry (LOSSAM: Line of Sight Sky Absorption Monitor) and on the vertical distribution of the turbulence (THIM: Turbulence Height and Isoplanaticity Monitor), two extensions of the DIMM to be introduced this year

FIRST STEPS TOWARDS THE TOMOGRAPHY OF OPTICAL TURBULENCE

The atmospheric seeing (black lower curve, in arcsec) is the cumulative effect of several turbulent layers at various altitudes: monitoring the characteristic altitude of the turbulence (red upper curve, in km) is necessary for planning adaptive optics instrumentation. In this example, the bad seeing is located at low altitude while good conditions are produced by a few layers at high altitude.