Images of the sky at 30 minute intervals as seen from the NOAA ship DISCOVERER are available at this web site. The pictures were taken with 35mm camera using a fish-eye lens and have been converted to jpg format at a resolution of 768 by 512 pixels. Each image file is aprox. 55 Kbytes long. The images are organized into subdirectories, one subdirectory for each 'local' day. The image files are numbered sequentially within each day, each image being 30 minutes after the previous image. The date and time were imprinted onto each negative when the picture was taken in the format
DD.MM.YY HH:MM:SS
The time and date were intended to be GMT (or UTC). Unfortunately there was a 2-hour time error in the camera clock that was consistent throughout the entire project. To correct the date and time to GMT, please subtract 2 hours from the date and time shown in the picture. Thus, if the image indicates 9.12.95 3:30:06, the correct GMT time (and date) would be: 01:30 on December 9, (Day 343). Likewise, an image with an indicated date and time of 7.12.95 1:00:06 would have a correct GMT time and date of 23:00 on December 6, (Day 340).
Because the GMT 'midnight' occurred during each 'local' day, and because the image directories are organized by local day, the GMT day increments by one during each local day. Thus, the date stamped on each image corresponds to the date of the local day directory for the last half of each local day. (However, on the transit leg, while the ship was between Seattle and the dateline, the date stamped on each image corresponds to the date of the local day directory for the first half of each local day).
The waterproof case containing the camera was taken down each evening and remounted on top of the aerosol sampling van each morning. The orientation of the case was not consistent throughout the project. In the image above the bow of the ship is on the right, (in front of the air sampling mast) and the stern of the ship is to the left (behind the ship's mast). On many days the air sampling mast and the bow are seen on the left.
Technical details about the camera.
These data are also available from our anonymous ftp server at: saga.pmel.noaa.gov in directory /pub/ace1_sky/
These images will be available at much higher resolution (Kodak Photo CD format) from UCAR.