Precipitable Water Vapour at the Canarian Observatories (Teide and Roque de los Muchachos) from routine GPS

Julio A. Castro-Almazán; Casiana Muñoz-Tuñón; Begoña García-Lorenzo; Gabriel Pérez-Jordán; Antonia M. Varela; Ignacio Romero

doi:10.1117/12.2232646

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18 July 2016 Precipitable Water Vapour at the Canarian Observatories (Teide and Roque de los Muchachos) from routine GPS

Julio A. Castro-Almazán, Casiana Muñoz-Tuñón, Begoña García-Lorenzo, Gabriel Pérez-Jordán, Antonia M. Varela, Ignacio Romero

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Proceedings Volume 9910, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VI; 99100P (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232646
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Abstract

We are presenting two years (2012 and 2013) of preliminary statistical results of calibrated PWV values from the GPS geodesic antennas (LPAL and IZAN) at Teide and Roque de los Muchachos Observatories (OT and ORM), Canary Islands. To calibrate the PWV from both GPS antennas we have selected a set of simultaneous high vertical resolution radio-sounding profiles from the closest operational balloon station, Güímar (GUI-WMO 60018; ≈15 km distant from OT and ≈150 km from ORM). The calibrations showed a correlation of 0.994 and 0.970 for OT and ORM, respectively, with rmse of 0.44 and 0.70 mm. The calibrated PWV series brought median values of 3.5 mm at OT and 4.0 mm at ORM. The difference is explained by the ~200 m of difference in height of the antennas (LPAL antenna is below the telescopes altitude). Twenty five percent of the time, PWV is less than 1.7 mm.

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Julio A. Castro-Almazán, Casiana Muñoz-Tuñón, Begoña García-Lorenzo, Gabriel Pérez-Jordán, Antonia M. Varela, and Ignacio Romero "Precipitable Water Vapour at the Canarian Observatories (Teide and Roque de los Muchachos) from routine GPS", Proc. SPIE 9910, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VI, 99100P (18 July 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232646

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