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| Joint Astronomy Centre |
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Since the summer of 2001 the JCMT has been reguarly using a cabin mounted Water Vapour Monitor (WVM) provided to the JCMT by MRAO. Built as a thesis project by Martina Wiedner (under the supervision of Richard Hills) it works by looking at the 183GHz water vapour line using a three channel double side band receiver. The three channels enable it to provide accurate measurements in conditions ranging from very dry to very wet. By using a small pickup mirror mounted just above and to one side of the main JCMT tertiary mirror it looks almost exactyl along the same line of sight that the primary instrument being used is. This feature is at its most useful in variable conditions where the CSO tau may not be giving reliable readings (if, for example, a new weather front is approaching from one horizon). With a sampling rate of 1 reading per 6 seconds it is easily able to detect individual clouds (or 'blobs' of water) passing overhead. This semester we are investigating the possibility to use it to correct the SCUBA photometry data. The picture above shows the WVM mounted above receiver W with the pickup mirror mounted above the TMU. The screen shot shown below is the current user interface which enables it to be started and stopped and displays recent data collected. All the data collected over the last few months has been archived. 
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Robin Phillips |