How many laptops can fit into a standard shipping container? We tried to find out during another week of on-sky measurements in La Palma (see our previous experimental run here) with our collaborators. This time we had almost 70W of laser power on sky, with several test campaigns running in parallel and sequentially. Our main focus was on frequency-chirping and single-sideband modulation. In past campaigns we had already seen a return flux gain due to frequency-chirping at lower laser power levels, so we were very confident to see significant effects at 70W. However, unfortunately, the weather was not kind to us this time, and we had to contend with clouds and strong winds. We did see promising effects, in particular by detecting the side view of the sodium plume from the Isaac Newton telescope. This allowed us to measure the chirping effect with height resolution, providing insights into the dynamics in the different sub-layers of sodium layer, which is typically 10km in height. We’re still working on the data analysis, stay tuned for more.
