Editor’s Note: Scientist Chuck Long is the instrument lead for the total sky imager (TSI). He shared a quick note from his review of the video taken by his instrument up at Storm Peak Lab (SPL) last weekend. To see the footage that the TSI captured of the first snow on October 8, view the YouTube movie.

Well, here’s the first episode of riming, and what effect it will potentially have on the TSI. The first snow fell at Storm Peak Lab in Colorado on October 8, when temperatures dropped to -3 degrees Celsius. The next day, riming on the TSI’s camera housing started affecting the view at about 9:00 am local time, obscuring the sky image. It slowly worsened (increased view blockage) across the day, blocking about 20% of the view at sunrise and about 50% by the end of the day. A short-term solution is to clear off the rime whenever someone might happen to go up to SPL.

A longer-term solution might be to put a heater element inside the camera housing to prevent riming in the first place. But that will require some re-engineering of the housing to get the AC current in through it while keeping the housing weather-sealed. I’ll have to think about this some, and then get out the duct tape!