With the weather increasingly on the mend and our short but successful observations the night before, we decided to head back to Poker Flat Research Range in the hopes of repeating our previous success. We again decided to drop All Sky outside, leaving interior observing space to the spectro-binoculars. Skylar came equipped with both of … [Read more…]
After another string of cloudy days, we again found ourselves with favorable weather predictions. Having worn ourselves out making the often hour plus trek to Poker Flat and back, we decided to try again to make some observations at sites closer to our base camp. We initially settled on a different nearby lake, but when … [Read more…]
We’ve now said goodbye to two of our team members (thanks Scott and Jacob!) and unfortunately been greeted by a few days of cloudy weather. While this is a serious challenge for our visual diagnostics, it poses no problem for our radio systems, so we turned our attention to radio measurements until the weather passed … [Read more…]
After our successful night of observations at Poker Flat Research Range the night before, we decided to return to the range again the next night to see if we could continue our observational success. A late wakeup from the night before lead to a late arrival at the range (nearly midnight!) so the aurora was … [Read more…]
After our visit to University of Alaska, Fairbanks on the 9th we were invited to join scientist and professor Don Hampton for a visit to Poker Flat Research Range, the only university owned rocket range in the world. This site is frequently used by NASA to launch sub-orbital sounding rockets to study the aurora and … [Read more…]
After several days of cloudy weather and only tantalizing reflections off of distant clouds, we finally made our first successful observation of the aurora borealis on the evening of January 9th, 2024! Weather predictions showed that clouds were going to clear, and we set off for a local state park with a lake to see … [Read more…]
An all-sky camera is exactly what it says on the tin: a camera capable of imaging the entire sky simultaneously. This statement might sound somewhat gradious and like a major technical challenge, but in fact all-sky cameras are really just normal cameras with a special lens. This lens creates a 180 degree field of view, … [Read more…]
We arrived in Fairbanks late in the night. We drove past North Pole and saw a moose near Moose Creek on our way to where we will be staying for the next two weeks – Salcha, AK. We couldn’t help but immediately get out our cold weather gear and go and watch the sky. A … [Read more…]