Odin nordlyskamera

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Odin nordlyskamera

The Odin imager is an i mage-intensified video camera that can capture even the faintest aurora on video, 25 frames per second. It is used in our campaign based studies of northern lights (aurora borealis) on Svalbard and in Tromsø, as a support to radar based EISCAT measurements.

The imager has a portable, flexible, and digital design, which allows it to be used on many locations under different requirements. Beautiful results from the imager, in the form of digital low-resolution video clips in .avi and .mov formats suitable for most needs, can be viewed here.

The use of the imager is for the moment concentrating on two unresolved issues in auroral physics, namely that of black aurora, and auroral rays and their relation to enormously strong echoes received by the EISCAT radar. Both problems involve basic theoretical physics and advanced experimental methods.

There is a set of problems suitable for the interested student at any level (from introductory level to doctorate). These problems are to a large part cross-disciplinary, and require skills from many areas within classical physics to computer science. Please contact the principal investigator, Mårten Blixt for more information.