NA LIDAR at L'Aquila (42.35 83N, 13.35 83E) Italy
Abstract
At L'Aquila LIDAR station we routinely have been observing Na layer since January 1997. Our system consists of a tunable Dye laser pumped by frequency doubled Nd:YAG-laser with an energy of ~60 mJ, a repetition rate of 10 Hz, a divergence of < 0.5 mrad and a linewidth of 0.05cm-1. This LIDAR work at night-time, the spatial resolution and time resolution of the sodium density profiles are 300 m and 200 sec respectively with 5% to 10% density error. We are installing a high resolution acquisition card to improve the spatial resolution to 30 m and we are developing our LIDAR for daytime sodium measurements with an ultra-narrow Na dispersive magneto-optical filter. With this filter during daytime we have a preliminary sodium profiles with a temporal resolution of 30 min., but we are trying to improve to 10 min. During November 1998 Leonid event we were unable to make LIDAR measurements because it was raining during the peak of meteor activity and in the other days of measurements we did not observe significant variation on sodium layer, but we are ready for November 1999 Leonid event when European sites are in a favourite position. Our station also is the Southern most Na LIDAR in Europe.
- Publication:
-
The Leonid MAC Workshop
- Pub Date:
- 1999
- Bibcode:
- 1999lmac.workE..28D