It Looks Like a Good Night

Computer Science – Sound

Scientific paper

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1739 Solar/Planetary Relationships, 2407 Auroral Ionosphere (2704), 2704 Auroral Phenomena (2407), 3304 Atmospheric Electricity, 3324 Lightning

Scientific paper

My work with Jack Winckler encompassed the active sounding rocket Echo 7, the Skyflash program of dark sky optical transient detection, and an extended series of midlatitude aurora observations. While significantly different, these projects have distinct connections to one another, and to the cosmic ray work that Winckler performed at the beginning of his career. The three programs made significant scientific discoveries, even with limited budgets. This was possible through a small but dedicated scientific team, a well-stocked salvage area, and, most importantly, Winckler's philosophy that the science, as it is gradually revealed through experiment, should itself guide the experiments. Skyflash, for instance, which began as an attempt to detect cosmic gamma-ray bursts, rapidly evolved into an experiment in detection of distant lightning, setting the stage for the recognition of above-cloud lightning. Skyflash results also provided the answer to a minor geophysical riddle (Fast Atmospheric Pulsations), and left a legacy of still-unexplained events. Our auroral work, similarly, advanced in complexity from basic photometry to stereo video imaging as we recognized the wealth of complex phenomena present in the pulsating aurora; in particular, the rapid motions of individual pulsations towards the zenith. The time-consuming nature of analyzing large amounts of video meant ultimately that the stereo measurements remained primarily a phenomenological record, although Winckler worked a great deal with the photometric data. As the solar cycle waned, we were left with a number of unanswered questions regarding the tall auroral rays so often seen at midlatitudes, pulsation time and spatial scales, and pulsation motions. Echo 7, while experimentally quite different from the other two projects, gave us experience with the low-light video systems that played a major role in both Skyflash and the midlatitude auroral work. Echo 7 was highly successful in its own right, resulting in a number of unique geophysical measurements.

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