Results and outline of multi-direction lidar system experiments

Abstract:

 Shinshu University, Nagoya University and RIKEN developed an all solid-state, high-power Na lidar for the temperature/wind measurements in the MLT region over the EISCAT radar site in Tromso (69 N), Norway. The lidar was launched at the radar site on October 2010, and the observation has been successfully done for successive four winter seasons. Current observation is five-direction mode, which observes a vertical direction, as well as directions of 30-degree tilted to the north, south, east and west.

 Now we try to upgrade the system to observe any direction in the sky using a new laser transmission system and a PC-controllable telescope. The transmission system is composed of two electric rotary stages and two mirrors with the vertical and horizontal axes to emit the laser. The pointing repeatability to the same direction was measured to be within 0.1 mrad. The azimuth and elevation of the telescope was adjusted using the position of some bright stars. The pointing repeatability of the telescope was confirmed to be about 0.3.mrad. Using a CCD camera, laser trajectory can be monitored with the telescope image so that we can tweak the direction.

 Current subject we are focusing on is to make automatic and successive observations to a set of directions in the sky.  In this talk, we introduce our new lidar and will discuss the results of test observation mentioned above.