I have been convinced for some time now that NSL data can tell us things about clouds and the atmosphere that are not known, even beyond our opacity maps. Just looking at the unusual and complex motions of thin clouds during a night seems to give an unprecedented window into short time-scale night-time cloud activity. Here is a (almost) random movie file from the Canary Island station: http://nightskylive.net/ci/ci040717/movie-ci040717.gif
Also, Looking at different color stars through clouds and near the horizon should be able to tell us about short time-scale night-time aerosol activity.
One problem is that I do not have a background in atmospheric science and do not know what to look for in NSL data. If there are any atmospheric scientists out there that would care to use NSL data -- please feel free -- the data is public domain.
If the data doesn't convince someone, maybe money will -- research announcements for big grants -- like $1 million US dollars, come up and we here at NSL would be happy to collaborate with anyone who would want to submit a proposal. Here is a research announcement for an Instrument Incubator program from NASA that caught my attention this morning:
http://research.hq.nasa.gov/code_y/nra/ ... /main.html
- RJN
