Three years of dust monitoring at the Galileo telescope

Adriano Ghedina; Marco Pedani; Juan Carlos Guerra; Valentina Zitelli; Ignazio Porceddu

doi:10.1117/12.552639

28 September 2004 Three years of dust monitoring at the Galileo telescope

Adriano Ghedina, Marco Pedani, Juan Carlos Guerra, Valentina Zitelli, Ignazio Porceddu

Proceedings Volume 5489, Ground-based Telescopes; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.552639
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2004, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Abstract

Since summer 2001, dust pollution of the air is regularly measured through a particle counter at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) located at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma - Canary Islands). Canary Islands are normally interested by a dominant atmospheric circulation with NE winds. Depending on their strenght, and their exact direction, winds may bring with themselves small to large amount of dust from the Sahara desert, with important consequences on the transparency of the sky. Meteorological satellites gave us some impressive examples of such these phenomenon. We show here the results of trying a correlation between dust-pollution data and the nightly atmospheric extinction measured at other telescopes. While the transparency is mostly affecting the astronomical work, other effects like changes of air temperature and humidity are clearly visible; for this reason dust-pollution data are also compared with the weather data recorded at the TNG meteo tower.

Citation Download Citation

Adriano Ghedina, Marco Pedani, Juan Carlos Guerra, Valentina Zitelli, and Ignazio Porceddu "Three years of dust monitoring at the Galileo telescope", Proc. SPIE 5489, Ground-based Telescopes, (28 September 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.552639

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available