Facilities
Mauna Loa Solar Observatory (MLSO)
— MLSO houses several instruments designed to observe the sun at many different wavelengths. These instruments provide observations needed to understand the sun's continuous release of plasma and energy into interplanetary space.
NCAR Vacuum Tunnel Facility (NVTF)
— NVTF is a unique facility that consists of a class 10,000 clean room and a coronagraph calibration chamber. This chamber has been used to calibrate instruments such as the ATM/Skylab Coronagraph, the Solar Maximum Mission Coronagraph/Polarimeter, the Spartan 201 White Light Coronagraph, and COR-1. The NVTF was brought back into operation in FY2001 for NASA's COR-1 coronagraph design evaluation as part of the STEREO Mission.
Fabry Perot Interferometer at Resolute Bay, Canada (Resolute FPI)
— The FPI instrument provides the neutral wind data monitored from the Early Polar Cap Observatory, in the northern high latitude (Resolute Bay; 74.68°N, 94.90°W), Canada. The Resolute FPI measures neutral winds (slide show) by monitoring the Doppler shift of the OH Meinel (7–3) 8920 Å emission line, which peaks at approximately 87 km (Witt et al., 1979). The FPI uses a circle-to-line-interferometer-optics (CLIO) conical mirror to reduce the CCD readout noise. More information about the CLIO-FPI can be found in papers by Hays (1990) and Wu et al. (1994). The CLIO-FPI takes a wind measurement at the zenith, at each of the four cardinal (N, S, E, and W) directions with a 45° elevation angle, and a dark image during one measurement cycle. The exposure time for each measurement is 90 s and a complete cycle requires roughly 10 min including time for CCD reading and sky scanner mirror movements. The neutral wind errors are approximately 10 m/s based on photon statistics.
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Fabry-Perot Interferometer at Palmer, Antarctica (Palmer FPI)
— Instrument development work began on the new Fabry-Perot Interferometer (FPI) that is scheduled to be installed at Palmer, Antarctica. This effort is being conducted in collaboration with Australian scientists who have FPI instruments at Mawson and Davis Antarctica to jointly analyze the neutral wind and temperature data to address the following issues: (1) thermospheric neutral wind effect on the Weddell Sea Anomaly, (2) lower thermosphere wind effect on shuttle plume drift, (3) nonmigrating tides in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere, and (4) geomagnetic effect on the thermospheric wind. The deployment of the FPI to Antarctica will provide some answers to a long-standing question regarding the Weddell Sea Anomaly in the Antarctica Peninsula region. Palmer FPI was installed in late 2010 and is fully operational.
See HAO Annual Report:
- Observational Facilities and Data Service— Read More »