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Two Decades of Persistence Yields Aurora Image
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 12:08 pm ET
02 February 2000
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aurorar_sidebar_1_000201 Researcher David Rees said a number of factors came together to make the first observation of the daytime aurora possible. Like many scientific endeavors, persistence paid off. For 20 years Rees been leading a team developing the study's key instrument, an imaging spectrometer designed with special filters, called the Mark II. But only recently did his company's budget allow for the purchase of needed expensive equipment to make the instrument useful for capturing the elusive daytime aurora. Even so, the team had to borrow an expensive charged-couple device (CCD) that made the set-up work. The CCD, as it's known, is a silicon chip with millions of light-gathering pixels, used in place of film for most high-end astronomy applications. Over the past two decades, Rees and his colleagues had employed the developing technique in other areas of study, from measuring wind to detecting clouds. "I made some initial attempts [to image the daytime aurora] around 15 years ago but I was thwarted by lack of funds and appropriate technology," Rees said. After the instrument worked in other applications, he decided to return to the daytime aurora. "This time it worked." Rees envisions an improved version of the instrument that would image a larger swath of sky. Several could be deployed around the Arctic region to monitor details of the daytime aurora. The network of ground-based imagers could work in concert with satellites, he suggests, which would provide a big picture of the phenomenon, but at lower resolution. Meanwhile, Rees and his colleagues are set to go out again: "We'll be observing for a longer period this April in Kiruna, along with an upgraded instrument, which should be able to make even better measurements."
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