Brewer Installation in Poland
Published: Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Brewer Mk III Spectrophotometer is a unique instrument that provides automated observations of the total Ozone and SO2 column concentration in the atmosphere. It also makes high quality spectral measurements of UV radiation from the sun and sky. Our Product Engineer for the Brewer, Arjan Hoogendoorn, travels the world to install, calibrate, service and repair the Brewers. In October 2010 he traveled to Poland for the delivery and installation of Brewer number 207.
This Brewer was purchased by the Institute of Geophysics (IGF) of the Polish Academy of Sciences. It was to be installed at the Central Geophysical Observatory in the town of Belsk Duzy, about one hour south of Warsaw and in the heart of the apple farming region of Poland. This rural observatory is important for its air quality monitoring and its atmospheric science.
Brewer Mk II 064 has been measuring Ozone and UV at the observatory for many years. The objective was to install the new Brewer 207 alongside Brewer 064 and to get the customer familiar with the specific features of the Mk III, for example: the double spectrometer and the extended range for UV measurements.
On Arjan’s first day at the observatory, the Brewer was unpacked, checked for any problems in shipping, and tested indoors. Whilst the Brewer was doing tests, the tripod was assembled and installed on the roof and the azimuth tracker leveled. Cables were installed and the operating computer and software configured. In the afternoon the new Brewer was taken upstairs and was set to measure alongside Brewer 064.
In the following two days, Brewer 064 was compared to Brewer 207. Both Arjan and the customer were happy with the results and both Brewers produced similar Ozone values. At the end of the day, when the sun got lower and the airmass increased, Brewer 207 had more consistent Ozone measurements than Brewer 064. This is typical for the Brewer Mk III which has a better signal to noise ration because of the double spectrometer.
Arjan’s last day in Belsk was used for checking the UV response of the Brewer using the UVB Stability Kit that was supplied with this Brewer. After this, it was concluded that the Brewer was working properly and Arjan headed back to Warsaw to spend the last day of his trip to Poland sightseeing.
We would like to thank Dr. Janusz Jaroslawski, Department of Physics of the Atmosphere, at IGF for his assistance during the purchase and installation of this Brewer. You can find out more about the Observatory at http://www.igf.edu.pl/en/obserwatoria/cog_belsk , click on ‘Atmospheric Aerosol Group’ and then on ‘Aparatura’ to see the equipment in use. The new Brewer 207 is not shown on the Observatory website yet, but is in the picture below together with Brewer 064.
