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The Canary Island (CI) CONCAM3 has been running very well since the start of 2004.

RJN wrote:The Canary Island (CI) CONCAM3 has been running very well since the start of 2004.

13:45 East; Aug 08.

Is CI and KP down?

I think both CI and KP are running OK. The frames shown on their station pages, http://nightskylive.ner/ci/ and http://nightskylive.net/kp/ both show (right now) the last image expected at local nautical sunrise, as expected. Nautical sunset and sunrise times are shown at the bottom of the station pages. All NSL stations nominally run from nautical sunset to nautical sunrise. Both stations also show a bright eastern horizon, again consistent with stopping at sunrise. I therefore think that both stations are up and running at the present time.

- RJN

tilvi wrote:

RJN wrote:The Canary Island (CI) CONCAM3 has been running very well since the start of 2004.

13:45 East; Aug 08.

Is CI and KP down?

No. Both stations are currently running, and have been running very well in the last few months. I don't see any problem with these two.

There is sometimes a lot of dust from the African Sahara desert that blows over the Canary Islands. A really cool web page is here
and shows this image:


That image is from the NASA MODIS satellite taken August 25. I wonder if the dust affects CI CONCAM images in any way? Perhaps the opacity maps show something or the stars near the horizon may appear unusually dim, etc?

- RJN

Bob, the visibility of a dust storm by MODIS does not mean that the visibility at the top of the mountain is affected in the same degree. The Dust particles are heavy and would settle to lower altitudes. However, if the lower atmosphere is very turbulent, the dust will be ~uniformly distributed and the CI CONCAM would be affected as well. In our case at WO we have had some very thick dust storms when the horizontal visibility is down to tens of meters (optically thick beyond this distance). In such cases you pray that the lens does not get scratched!

Noah Brosch

I have been trying to understand why Polaris from CI has been jumping around so much recently and so I decided to check to see whether CI observatory itself has any independant information about variable extinction on their web pages.

And they do! Saharan dust has been having a big effect on recent CI data, as it has in past summers! If one looks at this page: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~dwe/SRF/camc_extinction.html you will find this quote:

The number of high extinction values that occur every summer is normally caused by Saharan dust.

They actually have a table of extinction created every night (all night long) here for 2004:
http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~dwe/SRF/data/camcext.04
There the extinction level is shown to be quite high in recent days, as much as 0.418 magnitudes one night (in r' band, similar to Johnson V) from 0.127 the previous night. So CI CONCAM photometers beware!

- RJN

Yes, there are annoying and persistent spots somewhere on the CI optics. In regard to these spots, here is an email I sent recently to the people who run CI, as well as their reply. Rene Rutten is actually the director of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes there:

***********

Hi Robert,
yes, we noted the worsening quality as well. We took off the protective dome two weeks ago or so, and then a period of bad weather came in, which may have affected the lens. Next week I'll be on site again and will have a look myself. Will keep you posted.
Rene

> Hi Don Carlos and Rene,
>
> The spots in the CI CONCAM images are getting worse and worse.
> Can someone go up and take a look at all of the optical surfaces
> to see if one of them could be causing these spots? Thanks for
> anything you can do.
>
> - Robert
>

Well Rene has looked at the dome and the lenses and it is not obvious where the spots are. So I thought about this and the spots might be on one of the lower lenses inside the fisheye or on the glass slide right in front of the CCD chip itself, inside the CCD camera. To find and clean these spots, the CI CONCAMer would neet to disassemble their CI CONCAM3.

- RJN

CI continues to have massive moisture problems. I noticed something that I found quite amazing.

This image has an associated photometry file listing values for ~50 stars http://nightskylive.net/ci/ci050222/ci0 ... 2734p.html
I don't think anyone would try to use this data, but I am curious if these are actually valid identifications of stars by WOLF? It is hard to image anything can be tracked in such an image...

Vic Muzzin wrote:CI continues to have massive moisture problems.

Vic and the group, it looks as though somebody has been hard at work on the CI CONCAM. I can see Moon, stars and even some buildings and the horizon surrounding the site! Still has water spots, but clearly improvements have been made. Photometry available as well. Nice Job!

Don Carlos from CI writes "This year we've had an extraordinary amount of snow which has prevented us from gaining access to the telescopes. As soon as we have access to the camera, it will be cleared of snow."

Vic Muzzin wrote: As soon as we have access to the camera, it will be cleared of snow."

Looks like CI Concam is still snowed in. The time and date stamp is correct though.

It looks like the CI Concam began returning usable images on Mar 7th with photometry and opacity working as well. Nice images too.

Hi Don Carlos,

I heard that at Canary Island an enclosure for the CONCAM was biuld
but it got fog inside. Can you tell me something about it, please?

Questions:
Does your enclosure has an acrylic transparent dome?
Does it has vents?
Is the moisture condensing inside the acrylic dome or outside?

Please, excuse me if I have caused some inconvenient and thanks
for your time.

Is there any news on approximately how long the CI ConCAM will be "down for maintenance"? I haven't been able to get anything since 2005/04/14 at about 2:15 UT and there is not further information on the website.

Many thanks
Andy Newsam

Right now all the CONCAM 3's are down to fix some software problems. As soon as this is fixed, the CONCAMs will be back online. According to the original timetable, they won't be back up until after the next full moon

Thanks for the quick reply. I shall try to remember to read the general status posts as well in future! (Sorry!)

Thanks again
Andy