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
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 . 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.
- Quicklooks (about 50 K bytes each)
- Full resolution (2.2 M bytes each)
- Sample gif movie (made by Christer Jurén) (5.8 M bytes)
All images are freely available for non-commercial non-profit usage. Please contact
Scientist, Head of ObservatoryUrban Brändström
urban.brandstrom@irf.se