Paper 13094-159
The last upgrades of the CATS station
Abstract
The atmospheric turbulence measurement is an essential information for high-angular resolution imaging in astronomy, and for optical link. Since 2015, the CATS station monitors atmospheric conditions at the Calern observatory, during both daytime and nighttime from the ground to the top of the atmosphere. The station is fully autonomous and is equipped with a set of instruments to continuously monitor optical turbulence. The Profiler of Moon Limb measures, from Sun or Moon limbs observation, the vertical profiles of the refractive index structure constant Cn2 with a high vertical resolution. The Generalized DIMM monitors the integrated turbulence parameters by observing bright stars. More recently, knowing the need of turbulence forecasting, we developed a system integrated in the CATS station to daily predict daytime and nighttime meteorological and optical turbulence conditions for the next 48h. We also have designed an instrumental platform attached to a drone and allowing to measure, with a high resolution, the weather conditions between the ground and an altitude of around 500m. Recently we have improved the station by adding instrument to better monitor the cloud conditions.
Presenter
Aziz Ziad
Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (France)
Also in the session