The first Digital All-Sky Camera (DASC) in Kiruna
Operated 2001-12-11 until 2009-09-15
An all-sky camera has been operating in Kiruna since the International Geophysical Year in 1957 (Stoffregen, 1962). In 1977 the camera was replaced with a new more automated type (Hypönen et al. 1974). This camera was in operation until 2004, however a replacement is strongly needed since the data storage medium is 16 mm colour film, which is expensive and difficult to handle. The advanced new Finnish all-sky cameras (Syrjäsuo, 2001) are based on intensified CCD:s with filter-wheels and narrow band interference filers like ALIS. The new digital all-sky camera in Kiruna is based on a commercial digital camera with replaceable optics.
The camera (Fuji FinePix S2Pro) is equipped with a Nikon Nikkor 8 mm 1:2.8 giving almost 180 degrees field-of-view. The photo to the right shows the prototype camera. The camera is mounted inside a small dome. In the fall of 2009 it was replaced by a Nikon D700
The camera is controlled by a camera control computer and the image data is transferred to an archiving computer, where it is made available to the world-wide web. The data is archived on DvD-R disks.
Data archive
Format of the filenames
- xKRNYYYYmmddTHHMMSSEnnnnnQ.JPG
-
- KRN
- Kiruna, exposure time calculated from solar zenith angle.
- LKRN
- Kiruna, long exposure.
- SKRN
- Kiruna, short exposure.
- YYYY
- Year.
- mm
- Month 01-12 for January to December.
- dd
- Day of month 01-31.
- HH
- Hours 00-23
- MM
- Minutes 00-59
- SS
- Seconds 00-59
- E
- Exposure time follows
- nnnnn
- milliseconds
- Q
- Quicklook
- .JPG
- Jpeg file
Sample images, two hours from 2001-12-12
Links to sample images for the time interval 2001-12-12 21:00-22:59 UTC (quicklooks) 21:40-22:29 UTC (full resolution images) A nice auroral event starts 2001-12-12 at around 21:48 UTC.
- Quicklooks (about 50 K bytes each)
- Full resolution (2.2 M bytes each)
- Sample gif movie (made by Christer Jurén) (5.8 M bytes)
All images are freely available for non-commercial non-profit usage. Please contact Urban Brändström before using the data in scientific publications or in other published works.
Project team
- Urban Brändström
- Mats Luspa: mats.luspa@{NO\SPAM}@irf.se
- Arne Moström: arne.mostrom@{NO\SPAM}@irf.se
- Ulf Stenmark: ulf.stenmark@{NO\SPAM}@irf.se
Please remove @{NO\SPAM} in the email-addresses above before using them.
For further information, comments and questions please contact: Urban Brändström