Data

Cloud images of the sky above Davis Station, Antarctica, taken with the lidar cloudcam, 2004-2014

Australian Antarctic Data Centre
KLEKOCIUK, ANDREW ; ALEXANDER, SIMON
Viewed: [[ro.stat.viewed]] Cited: [[ro.stat.cited]] Accessed: [[ro.stat.accessed]]
ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2FANDS&rft_id=info:doi10.26179/9b07-1179&rft.title=Cloud images of the sky above Davis Station, Antarctica, taken with the lidar cloudcam, 2004-2014&rft.identifier=10.26179/9b07-1179&rft.publisher=Australian Antarctic Data Centre&rft.description=This project wound up at the end of the 2011/2012 Antarctic season. Data have continued to be collected beyond 2012-06-30 under a new project - 4292, The Antarctic Clouds and Radiation Experiment (ACRE). The CloudCam system captures timelapse images of the sky above Davis Station, Antarctica. So far it has been used to detect both noctilucent clouds (NLC) during summer and polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) during winter but it is also capable of imaging aurorae and tropopsheric clouds. The CloudCam system sits in a dome in the SAS building at Davis and consists of a camera, a motorised pod, a standard camera tripod and a standard PC which drives the image capture process and receives the imagery. Image capture process is driven by automated scripts on the PC which are executed as scheduled jobs using MacroScheduler software. All images are directly transferred to the PC where they are stored and processed by the scripts (no images are stored in the camera flash memory). The camera is powered from a mains outlet and connects to the PC using a standard USB 2.0 cable. MacroScheduler sripts perform the following tasks: - capture an image at user specified frequency, - transfer image to the PC, - time stamp the image with a user specified stamp, - rename the image file to YYYYMMDD_HHMM.JPG, - move the image file to the appropriate directory (YYYYMMDD), - every 24 hours make a timelapse movie of the images for a complete UTC day, and - create a new directory as required. The scripts also periodically close and restart the Canon Remote Capture software. This is a workaround for a bug which periodically freezes the Remote Capture software unless it is restarted. The PC time is synchronised to the Davis SAS NTP server and all image timestamps derive from the NTP time. Currently the camera azimuth is fixed but the TrackerCam software can drive the motorised pod for azimuth tracking (eg. when the sunrise azimuth changes rapidly after the polar night and during the spring when PSCs are are still present).&rft.creator=KLEKOCIUK, ANDREW &rft.creator=ALEXANDER, SIMON &rft.date=2011&rft.coverage=northlimit=-68.576; southlimit=-68.578; westlimit=77.966; eastLimit=77.968; projection=WGS84&rft.coverage=northlimit=-68.576; southlimit=-68.578; westlimit=77.966; eastLimit=77.968; projection=WGS84&rft_rights=This data set conforms to the CCBY Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please follow instructions listed in the citation reference provided at http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/citation.cfm?entry_id=ASAC_737_lidar_cloudcam when using these data.&rft_subject=climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere&rft_subject=imageryBaseMapsEarthCover&rft_subject=CLOUD FREQUENCY&rft_subject=EARTH SCIENCE&rft_subject=ATMOSPHERE&rft_subject=CLOUDS&rft_subject=CLOUD PROPERTIES&rft_subject=CLOUD TYPES&rft_subject=VISIBLE IMAGERY&rft_subject=SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING&rft_subject=VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS&rft_subject=Cloudcam&rft_subject=clouds&rft_subject=images&rft_subject=Davis&rft_subject=Cameras&rft_subject=LIDAR > Light Detection and Ranging&rft_subject=CAMERA&rft_subject=FIXED OBSERVATION STATIONS&rft_subject=CONTINENT > ANTARCTICA&rft_subject=GEOGRAPHIC REGION > POLAR&rft_subject=VERTICAL LOCATION > MESOSPHERE&rft_subject=VERTICAL LOCATION > STRATOSPHERE&rft_place=Hobart&rft.type=dataset&rft.language=English Access the data
Cite Saved to MyRDA Save to MyRDA

Licence & Rights:

view details

This data set conforms to the CCBY Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please follow instructions listed in the citation reference provided at http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/citation.cfm?entry_id=ASAC_737_lidar_cloudcam when using these data.

Access:

Open view details

These data are publicly available for download from the provided URL. Note, due to their size you will be directed to a cloud service to access them.

Brief description

This project wound up at the end of the 2011/2012 Antarctic season. Data have continued to be collected beyond 2012-06-30 under a new project - 4292, The Antarctic Clouds and Radiation Experiment (ACRE).

The CloudCam system captures timelapse images of the sky above Davis Station, Antarctica. So far it has been used to detect both noctilucent clouds (NLC) during summer and polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) during winter but it is also capable of imaging aurorae and tropopsheric clouds. The CloudCam system sits in a dome in the SAS building at Davis and consists of a camera, a motorised pod, a standard camera tripod and a standard PC which drives the image capture process and receives the imagery. Image capture process is driven by automated scripts on the PC which are executed as scheduled jobs using MacroScheduler software. All images are directly transferred to the PC where they are stored and processed by the scripts (no images are stored in the camera flash memory). The camera is powered from a mains outlet and connects to the PC using a standard USB 2.0 cable.

MacroScheduler sripts perform the following tasks:
- capture an image at user specified frequency,
- transfer image to the PC,
- time stamp the image with a user specified stamp,
- rename the image file to YYYYMMDD_HHMM.JPG,
- move the image file to the appropriate directory (YYYYMMDD),
- every 24 hours make a timelapse movie of the images for a complete UTC day, and
- create a new directory as required.

The scripts also periodically close and restart the Canon Remote Capture software. This is a workaround for a bug which periodically freezes the Remote Capture software unless it is restarted. The PC time is synchronised to the Davis SAS NTP server and all image timestamps derive from the NTP time. Currently the camera azimuth is fixed but the TrackerCam software can drive the motorised pod for azimuth tracking (eg. when the sunrise azimuth changes rapidly after the polar night and during the spring when PSCs are are still present).

Issued: 2011-06-06

Data time period: 2004-02-07 to 2014-12-31

This dataset is part of a larger collection

Click to explore relationships graph
Help

Related Organisations

Related People

77.968,-68.576 77.968,-68.578 77.966,-68.578 77.966,-68.576 77.968,-68.576

77.967,-68.577

text: northlimit=-68.576; southlimit=-68.578; westlimit=77.966; eastLimit=77.968; projection=WGS84

Subjects
ATMOSPHERE | CAMERA | CLOUD FREQUENCY | CLOUD PROPERTIES | CLOUD TYPES | CLOUDS | CONTINENT > ANTARCTICA | Cameras | Cloudcam | Davis | EARTH SCIENCE | FIXED OBSERVATION STATIONS | GEOGRAPHIC REGION > POLAR | LIDAR > Light Detection and Ranging | SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING | VERTICAL LOCATION > MESOSPHERE | VERTICAL LOCATION > STRATOSPHERE | VISIBLE IMAGERY | VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS | climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere | clouds | imageryBaseMapsEarthCover | images |

User Contributed Tags    

Login to tag this record with meaningful keywords to make it easier to discover

Other Information

AU-ANL:PEAU : http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-617536

Identifiers
Similar data you may be interested in: