About the North Is Eureka the Next Sky-Watchers Mecca?
From the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Lab outside Eureka, the view is all sky. Researchers are hopeful that the atmos- pheric conditions and the uninterrupted winter darkness make the site suitable for world-class astronomical observation.
The moon rises behind the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Lab near Eureka, Nunavut. The facility is hosting new astronomical observation equipment to take advantage of the stargazing potential of uninterrupted winter darkness.
Shockingly few places on earth possess the right combination of geographic and climatic conditions to accommodate a truly world- class astronomical observation site. Clusters of research stations and telescopes have colonized coveted spots at Chile’s Atacama desert and Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano thanks to high elevations, clear skies and low pollution levels. Currently astronomers from the University of Toronto and the National Research Council of Canada are investigating
where Eureka, Nunavut, ranks by comparison. This winter saw the installation of a high-pow- ered digital camera atop the Polar Environ- mental Atmospheric Research Lab just a short distance from Eureka, the world’s second most Northern permanent research station. Located on a ridge that ascends beyond the visibility- hampering winter ice fog, the camera has been capturing two frames a minute to create time- lapse imagery of the Arctic skies. Among other scientific goals, the images will aid astro - nomers in their needle-in-a-haystack search for habitable planets orbiting around distant stars. Dr. Eric Steinbring, a lead researcher on
the project notes this search is made easier when a camera can capture the repeated orbiting pattern of that planet through an uninterrupted series of images. The winter darkness that descends on Eureka from September to March offers just that opportunity, one that mid latitude observatories cannot. Next winter a larger camera and the 0.5 m wide Dunlap Institute Arctic Telescope will join the sky-search. Steinbring and his colleagues are confident that celestial image quality captured from Eureka will propel the addition of more powerful astronomical telescopes in this remote stargazing oasis.
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