Moody KAIRA

Arrived at KAIRA pretty late last night. It was a moody scene. Low cloud lurking over Pikku Malla and everywhere damp and foggy.

Low cloud over KAIRA (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

LBA aerial problems

Along similar lines to yesterday's web log report, we've also carried out tests for all the aerials of the Low-Band Array (LBA). Here, we also have problems, although the situation is more complicated. Like yesterday, we shall start with a plot of all subbands for all RCUs configured for the LBA aerials.

As can be seen, there are a number which show abnormalities. Most of these are suppressed signals, sometimes causing a shift in the peak amplifier response frequency. This is likely to be caused by snow, as seen in one of our previous reports.

However, the effect on RCUs 68 and 69 is more serious. This looks like a destroyed aerial.

If we plot these onto a map of the array, the positions of the affected aerials are as follows:

One thing to note is that the signal processing chains can be cleared of any faults. The problem with the HBA was on RCUs 80 and 81, but this was absolutely fine for the LBA. The same applies the other way; for example, RCUs 68 and 69 are down here, but were okay on the HBA.

What needs to be done now is to evaluate the situation, especially with aerial #34.

KAIRA site conditions 2013.11.25

It is Friday again! But today, instead of a nice photograph, we have a short video for you. Earlier this week there was a pretty heavy snow fall at Kilpisjärvi. Our snow corridors are now about half full and with the wind picking up, there was quite a lot of drift snow banks about. Around midday, we took some video footage of various places around the site and have compiled them into a short video for you to see what KAIRA looks like at this time of year.

Direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut48VSVoFCk


Have a nice weekend!

Extreme weather at KAIRA

Yesterday, we had some pretty extreme weather at KAIRA. Overnight there had been a lot of snow and, as the skies cleared in the morning, some extremely high winds picked up and lashed the site.We were out first thing to collect some data disks and getting onto the site, and then into the RF-container, was quite a challenge.

Sheltering by the RF-container, I managed to take this photograph. Standing there, you could see great clouds of snow being swept up the northwest slope and hurled over the HBA tiles. The image doesn't really capture the ferocity of the morning, but perhaps it gives a hint of the conditions we had.

Clouds of snow blasting over the KAIRA HBA array (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

As far as we can tell, the telescope has survived with no damage. However, a full inspection will not be carried out until later today. Yesterday, we also managed to travel on to Tromsø (to take the observer to the airport) and cross the mountain passes safely both there and back. Thankfully we had the heavy four-wheel drive and not one of the lighter observatory vehicles.

Extreme weather warning

According to the Norwegian and Finnish Weather services, we are expecting extreme weather in the west and north west of Fenno Scandinavia today. In fact it already started last night with a dramatic increase in the wind.

The weather map over Trondheim and Bodø... not looking good! (source: yr.no)

KAIRA was checked at 20:00 local time last night and also again this morning. The report has yet to be posted. Additionally, we will attempt to cross the mountain passes into Norway in order to get our visiting observer to Tromsø airport for an outbound flight. Whether the passes remain open and whether the flights remain operational remains to be seen.

Current status: high winds and heavy snow.


Links:

• http://www.yr.no/sted/Finland/Lappland/Kilpisj%C3%A4rvi/ (Norwegian)
• http://ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/saa/enonteki%C3%B6/kilpisj%C3%A4rvi (Finnish)

The weather turns

On the 14th October, the weather at Kilpisjärvi turned. We had a fall of snow that didn't go away and the temperature dropped below 0 degrees celsius and has not made it back into the positive temperatures since. Furthermore, on the morning of the first heavy snows, there was a dramatic scene with firery dawn light churning between the sombre mountains and turbulent clouds.

A firery dawn tries to get through cloud and snow. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Rainbow over KAIRA

We often feature photographs of astronomical phenomena. Many of these are quite rare and are particular to the polar regions of the planet. But today we have one that more common to many people the world over. The lovely delicate colours of the rainbow.

Rainbow over KAIRA (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Ascending Pikku Malla

On Friday 11th October, we had a particularly bright morning. Therefore, the KAIRA observing team decided to change the weekend plan and take Friday morning off, instead of some time on the weekend itself. Our plan was to climb Pikku Malla.

Although Pikku Malla is often climbed by tourists in the summer, October is a slightly different story. Indeed, it was a delightfully sunny day, but it was very cold and extremely windy. And that was before we ascended to the top!

Pikku Malla... our mountaineering target (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Looking back, part way to the summit. You can just see KAIRA
in the centre of the image. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Nearing the top. The wind was howling by now. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Made it! We just need to hang-on now to stop being
blown away. In the distance, you can see Kilpisjärvi
lake and Sweden. (Photo: P. Martin)

While Pikku Malla might not be a very tall mountain, the high winds made it quite a challenge. Still, we thoroughly enjoyed the trip and we made it safely back.

A bit of a rarity...

Kilpisjärvi is quite a windy place. This was one of the major doubts we had when considering the construction of the KAIRA facility -- and which has resulted in some very heavy anchoring of all our High-Band Antenna (HBA) tiles! But today, it is deathly still. And, as reported by our Norwegian colleagues:

Tuesday: 10-12 o'clock... still, 0 metres/second, no wind. (Data: yr.no)

Wow!

Zero wind.

That's got to be a first... at least in the years since I've been working here.

So quite, so peaceful...

Weather forecasts

It is certainly useful to keep an eye on the weather and for us checking on the situation at Kilpisjärvi is no exception. In Finland, the weather service is handled by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). They provide an excellent online web service, with local statistics and forecasting for the region... in English, Finnish and Swedish. An easy search function allows you to find the region or place you are looking for in Finland quickly and easily.

Oh, and here is the direct link to Kilpisjärvi...

http://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/weather/enontekiö/kilpisjärvi

More summer storms

Down came the rain...

When those summer thunder storms come through, the certainly make themselves noticed. Here are some photographs from a recent storm that swept through the SGO site at Tähtelä. It probably only lasted 15 minutes or so, but the deluge was most spectacular.

Torrential downpour by the EISCAT 32m dish at SGO (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

The rapidly flooding carpark as the rain hammered down (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Summer storms... the data

Still on the theme of cooler weather, a while ago we posted a few photographs of some of the summer storms. Well, as we've been trawling through the data, we've found that particular event, and it looks pretty interesting in radio part of the spectrum.

In the first plot we have the different beamlets plotted as a function of time. The colours indicate the power (blues = low power, greens = medium, reds = strong).

Power (colour) for beamlets vs time.

The horizontal bands are for the different pointing directions (we have 11-14 beamlets per direction). Small rises in power (such as the green-ish section on the left) are due to parts of our Galaxy passing through those particular beams. The small flecks (such as in beamlets 85-95) are ionospheric scintillation.

But the interesting part here are the thin (single-sample) vertical lines that run through all beamlets. These are the radio bursts from the nearby lightning.

If we take the mean of all beamlets in the above plot and put them on the same time-axis, we see a rather startling forest of lightning discharge events.

Mean of beamlets from Plot 1 on the same time axis.

What's more, the above plot has a logarithmic vertical axis, giving some idea of the power levels that we get from these nearby atmospheric events.

Summer storms

The Arctic Summer is fickle. One minute it is blistering heat from 24/7 sunshine, but then it suddenly turns, plunging the landscape back into the tempest and returning the temperatures back to a pleasant level. The storms can be quite something too. Last week, this storm lashed through the Kilpis valley, hammering the site with sleet and rain and howling winds.

A wall of rain. Prepare to be soaked! (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Rain pounding down on the HBA tiles. The bicycle is going
nowhere for now. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Thankfully, we didn't have this on the day of the official opening!

The real dragon?

Still on the line of flying dragons, we then had one evening with a most peculiar cloud formation. As the sun set, the light caught a most incredible cloud formation. It was shaped like a huge bird... an albatross was what immediately sprang to mind when I saw it. The shape was amazingly clear and the rest of the sky was totally clear. I have no idea what caused it, but it was certainly very beautiful.

 

A peculiar cloud as seen from KAIRA on 25th September 2012. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

A slightly closer view. Sadly the tiny little camera that I have fails to do justice to this amazing sight. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

I can certainly understand how people long ago would be amazed by such apparitions in the sky. It is certainly fascinating to consider what our ancestors might have made of this.

A great bird; a portent of winter?

Or maybe a great white dragon?

Cloud formation

Just a nice photograph to finish the week. This cloud formation was spotted over Pikku Malla. (Photograph by A. Jutila.)

Not always dry

The weather, while usually pleasantly cool and overcast, is not always dry. Here are a few photographs from the days where the sky has been washing the site for us.

Although it looks like a lake, this is actually the floor of the LBA cable mausoleum. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

Droplets on one of the vehicle windows. If you look carefully, you can see the reflection of the HBA. (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

The weather turns

Despite it being June, the weather wasn't always kind. High winds made life difficult for the installation work. However, the temperatures stayed cool, which was very welcome. We even had some snow as we were installing the last few units.

Only a few HBA tiles to go! (Photo: D. McKay-Bukowski)

In the background, you can see the mountains, but between the site and the mountains is Siilasjärvi, the nearest lake. Its surface, along with most of Kilpisjärvi itself, was still covered with ice.

Warming up the electronics

Another part of the post-winter checks was making sure all the electronics were okay and that the systems were operational. Because winter can get extremely cold (–40 degrees) it is actually necessary to provide heating to ensure that the systems do not ice over!

The RF-electronics in the container at KAIRA.

Seriously! Where else would you find radiators in an electronics cabinet!

Everything was in good condition and the container was at a good temperature. Excellent news and we proceeded to continue configuration and testing work.

Snow posts

Around the edge of the site, there is some pretty rugged terrain. No doubt for those who were regularly following this web log last year, you will have seen some of the rocky ledges, dips and gullies and other treacherous obstacles. Of course, if you cover this with snow, then it becomes even more dangerous.

At the end of autumn 2011, before the snow became too deep, we went around the site and marked out some of the landscape features with snow posts.


These are made of PVC pipe, that is flexible and can move if hit by severe drifts. They also stand quite tall (which should give you an idea of how deep we could expect some snow falls!). They are also not dangerous if accidentally run into by a vehicle or person. Each one is bright orange for easy visibility against the snow and are taped with reflective strips making them easier to spot in the deep Arctic night.

Stormy weather

Although the weather has been reasonable, there have been occasions where storms have loomed over the mountains.

Ominous clouds billow up in the south.

Cloud descends over Pikku Malla as the team install a tile cover.

To date we've only been washed or blown off a couple of times. We've been fortunate so far.

Photos: D. McKay-Bukowski