The first Digital All-Sky Camera (DASC) in Kiruna
Operated 2001-12-11 until 2009-09-15
An all-sky camera has been operating in Kiruna since the
International Geophysical Year in 1957 (Stoffregen,
1962). In 1977 the camera was replaced with a new more
automated type (Hypönen
et al. 1974). This camera was in
operation until 2004, however a replacement is strongly needed since the
data storage medium is 16 mm colour film, which is expensive and
difficult to handle. The advanced new
Finnish all-sky cameras (Syrjäsuo,
2001) are based on intensified CCD:s with filter-wheels and
narrow band interference filers like ALIS.
The new digital all-sky camera in Kiruna is based on a commercial
digital camera with replaceable optics.
| The camera (Fuji FinePix S2Pro) is equipped with a Nikon
Nikkor 8 mm 1:2.8 giving almost 180 degrees field-of-view.
The photo to the right shows the prototype camera. The camera
is mounted inside a small dome. In the fall of 2009 it was replaced by a Nikon D700
| 
|
2001-03-19 19:10 UTC.
| The camera is controlled by a camera control computer
and the image data is transferred to an archiving computer,
where it is made available to the world-wide web. The data is archived on DvD-R disks.
|
Format of the filenames
- xKRNYYYYmmddTHHMMSSEnnnnnQ.JPG
- KRN Kiruna, exposure time calculated from solar zenith angle.
- LKRN Kiruna, long exposure.
- SKRN Kiruna, short exposure.
- YYYY Year.
- mm Month 01-12 for January to December.
- dd Day of month 01-31.
- HH Hours 00-23
- MM Minutes 00-59
- SS Seconds 00-59
- E Exposure time follows
- nnnnn milliseconds
- Q Quicklook
- .JPG Jpeg file
Sample images, two hours from 2001-12-12
Links to sample images for the time interval 2001-12-12 21:00-22:59
UTC (quicklooks) 21:40-22:29 UTC (full resolution images)
A nice auroral event starts 2001-12-12 at around 21:48 UTC.
All images are freely available for non-commercial non-profit
usage. Please contact Urban
Brändström before using the data in scientific publications or
in other published works.
Project team
- Urban Brändström
- Mats Luspa: mats.luspa@{NO\SPAM}@irf.se
- Arne Moström: arne.mostrom@{NO\SPAM}@irf.se
- Ulf Stenmark: ulf.stenmark@{NO\SPAM}@irf.se
Please remove @{NO\SPAM} in the email-addresses above before using
them.
For further information, comments and questions please contact:
Urban Brändström
Urban Brändström
Last modified: Wed Feb 25 07:43:42 UTC 2004
