Re: What are folks doing to keep the skys dark? monitoring network
- From: Dan Mckenna <dmckenna@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:19:09 -0700
We have just started testing a sky brightness instrument that is interfaced to the network. The sensor head is a solar charged, battery
powered, 2 channel, wireless, house keeping, root en toot en, all weather device that needs a care taker to clean the windows and calibrate the sensor.
The Base end connects to the net and has a web page interface as well as an rs-232 port. For reliability, the base and remote unit must be line of sight as we use low powered 2.4 ghz links. We will test the 900 mhz link with external antennas as well. I think of this as a garden unit
Vs a roof unit at the moment.
The Base e-mails reports to its net host once every hour using text
e mail that has 60 measurements and is programmable.
The 2 sensors have a 5 or so degree field of view and a window that needs to be cleaned. A calibration cap has a light source and calibrated detector that is used to check the window loss in the field. The caretaker will measure before and after the cleaning and the data sent to the central data base automatically. By placing the cap on the sensor the system is placed in the calibration mode.
The sensor head is a two channel detector. One is filtered with CM500 glass and the other one with out a filter for the response of silicon.
We hope to deploy night sky brightness stations using the net every where funding and the network will let us. Right now, we are waiting to see if they work in the field and have produced 5 finished electronics packages Base and Remote. (5@400/ea)
We hope to obtain funding to start a network this year and so for now will only be able to demonstrate limited network performance with four field units.
Here in Tucson the skies are around 18.5 Mag / sq arc/sec V
and we obtain .001 magnitude resolution.
The calibration of this instrument represents yet another photometry system as V does not directly correlate with CM500 glass photometry.
The key to this network is the calibration and stability of this instrument and our goal is to see how cheap we can get it. So far with two processors (rabbits) a wireless link and a net connection it's $400ea with memory and all.(hand assembled surf mount)
Traveling standards will tie the calibration together with a master calibrator kept at the lab in tucson.
The boards as they now exist have provisions for cell phone technology and on board GPS for mobile operations.
We are working toward a system where one base can control many or one remote as needed.
So it only a start, and I believe that the first generation of this kind of instrument has arrived and that it continues to grow. We will see how GenI works and what it costs to run it.
This work has been privately supported through the IDA Tucson
and contributions of the Vatican Observatory, VATT Project
at the University of Arizona, Steward Observatory.
Clear, Dark, and Steady
dan
TBerk wrote:
.
Is any recent work being done to help with light pollution? I am in
Northern California and the farming regions out in the Central Valley
are beginning to rival the SF metro area for large parking lots with
lights and street lights that don't actually point at the ground and so
on.
Kids these days don't really know what the Heavens look like, let alone
know what a constellation is.
Perhaps, for say New Years or better yet during the summer months, we
might all orchestrate a 'Lights Out' Night to get folks out on their
front porches and back yards and look up...
TBerk
If just for an hour or two.
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- What are folks doing to keep the skys dark?
- From: TBerk
- What are folks doing to keep the skys dark?
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