Image of the Week directory from previous years: 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004

Image of December 26, 2009:

Ice on a tower at an HPWREN backbone site.


Image of December 19, 2009:



Trail series of the December 14, 2009 Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer launch out of Vandenberg, as seen by an automated environmental camera at the SDSU Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve.

Image of December 12, 2009:

Cabrillo National Monument at Point Loma on a rainy and windy day.


Image of December 5, 2009:

The HPWREN web server at SDSC, while getting a new power supply.


Image of November 28, 2009:

First Mt. Laguna snow for this winter season.


Image of November 21, 2009:

This image the lunar crater Cabeus was taken on October 9, 2009 with the Palomar Observatory's 200-inch (5.1-meter) Hale Telescope and its adaptive optics system. Cabeus crater is located in the center, behind the large bright mountain. Cabeus was the target of the NASA LCROSS mission. The crater was chosen because it was thought to contain a substantial amount of water ice. It was hoped by the LCROSS mission team that the impact would send an ejecta plume above the lunar surface, which could be observed from ground-based telescopes. No plume was observed from any telescope, but water ice was detected from an orbiting NASA spacecraft.

Palomar's Adaptive Optics system removes the blurring effects of Earth's atmosphere to produce very high resolution images. This image is one of the highest resolution photos taken of the Moon from a ground-based telescope. The field of view is 71 km (40 arcseconds, with ~200m resolution), recorded at 2.1 microns wavelength. Images were produced by Antonin Bouchez of Caltech.

Caption by W. Scott Kardel, Public Affairs Coordinator, Palomar Observatory


Image of November 14, 2009:

Jim Hale, behind two HPWREN dish antennas at one of the backbone sites.


Image of November 7, 2009:

Group photo from the November 5 2009 HPWREN Annual Users Workshop at the Palomar Observatory.

Photo by Scott Kardel


Image of October 31, 2009:

HPWREN rack at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.


Image of October 24, 2009:

Tower acrobats at Lyons Peak.


Image of October 17, 2009:

About 30 megabyte MPEG-4 (.f4v) video from the inside of the Cal Fire AA330, taken during takeoff by Battalion Chief Ray Chaney with a wide-angle lens during a test flight related to the recent Enhanced Situational Awareness for First Responders article.


Image of October 10, 2009:

Cuyamaca Mountains view from an HPWREN backbone site.


Image of October 3, 2009:

11' * 9' NPS/SCRLC display, designed by Monika Braun, some of it related to the collaboration with HPWREN.

Photo by Susan Teel


Image of September 26, 2009:

Pablo Bryant and Jim Hale during the installation of the tracking antenna described in http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/news/20090925/.


Image of September 19, 2009:

Saturday fire in Riverside County, seen from a camera at the SDSU Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve.


Image of September 12, 2009:



Close Encounters of the Bird Kind


Image of September 5, 2009:

Cloud formations, as seen by an near-IR HPWREN camera. Time lapse animation.


Image of August 29, 2009:

Does this result in data errors?


Image of August 22, 2009:

Environmental cameras at the tidepools of the NPS Cabrillo National Monument, with images available at http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/cameras/. Note that there will be a public NPS Founder's Day event on Tuesday, August 25.

Photo by Jim Hale


Image of August 15, 2009:

Moon over San Diego. The photo was automatically taken by one of the NPS visibility cameras at the Cabrillo National Monument.


Image of August 8, 2009:

CalFire Air Attack AA330 at their Ramona air base.


Image of August 1, 2009:

A bottom-up view of the 200-inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory. The view shows the underside of the 200-inch mirror's cell with red cooling fans encircled by mechanical supports which help the mirror to retain its proper shape regardless of where the telescope is pointed. At the very center of the image is a bright spot, a reflection off of the telescope's secondary mirror some 50 feet above the primary mirror. Light from the camera flash passed up through the hole in the 200-inch mirror up to the secondary mirror and reflected back down to the camera. The photo was taken during an instrument change, catching the underside of the telescope in a rare moment with no camera attached to its lower (Cassegrain) focus.


Image of July 25, 2009:

Near the river crossing at the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve.


Image of July 18, 2009:

Wildlife observations upon returning from a Palomar Observatory meeting.


Image of July 11, 2009:

Newly HPWREN-connected Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) site near the tidepools at Point Loma. The Plate Boundary Observatory, part of the EarthScope Program that is funded by the National Science Foundation, studies the three-dimensional strain field resulting from active plate boundary deformation across the Western United States.


Image of July 4, 2009:

HPWREN-connected USArray site at Camp Elliot. The sensor itself is buried under ground.


Image of June 27, 2009:

A short video related to a recent HPWREN update shows Michael Peralta describing TDVnet collaborations.


Image of June 20, 2009:

The inside of a radio communications tower.


Image of June 13, 2009:

360 degree views from High Point (~64 megapixels) with the Palomar Observatory visible, and of the Ramona Cal Fire Air Attack Base (~65 megapixels) during preparations for a media event.


Image of June 6, 2009:

360 degree view of a sunset from the Point Loma lighthouse. The full image is about 67 megabytes.


Image of May 30, 2009:

A page from a 2010 greyscale calendar, which Monika Braun did as a college class project. The complete calendar can be found at http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/Monika/.


Image of May 23, 2009:

HPWREN and ANZA/USArray demo are being tested for a May 21 Calit2 Future in Review conference.


Image of May 17, 2009:

Pablo Bryant is preparing for a Green Day event at the SDSU Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve.


Image of May 9, 2009:

Condor feeding!

This image is part of a ~1.6MB video provided by wildlife biologist Jim Petterson of the NPS Pinnacles National Monument, which, in cooperation with the Institute for Wildlife Studies, has deployed PTZ cameras connected through a wireless network. The development of this network was aided by a technology transfer workshop and allows biologists to monitor feeding activities of California condors on a continuous basis. A second ~5,9MB video provides more details and also shows bird interactions.


Image of May 2, 2009:

New met sensor at an HPWREN backbone site. Data is available at http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/Sensors/


Image of April 25, 2009:

Several geo-referenced water quality samples from the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve river taken on April 23 by two NPS/SDSU interns via the system described in http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/news/20090324/. A KML object of the data can be found at http://hpwren.ucsd.edu/images/20090425.kml.


Image of April 18, 2009:

Scripps Instutution of Oceanography staff are evaluating wireless network connectivity between the SIO pier and La Jolla for potential LIVE distance education sessions from a boat in the kelp forest.

Photo by Jim Hale


Image of April 11, 2009:

UCSD Calit2 researchers are showing their StarCAVE surround-view adaptation of HPWREN's 2007 Harris Fire images to members of the HPWREN team. This graphically demonstrated the 360 degree view from Lyons Peak as the fire evolved and the mountain burned over.


Image of April 4, 2009:


Susan Teel and her team of interns are practicing radio-based Puma tracking at the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve.


Image of March 28, 2009:

The San Diego Supercomputer Center hosts the main HPWREN server and provides for HPWREN's Internet connection. The photo shows the equipment in its new location after the move on March 26 within the SDSC machine room.


Image of March 21, 2009:

NPS/SDSU interns Sarina Cassaro and Kelly Lion, while calibrating a water quality sensor near the tidepools at the Cabrillo National Monument.


Image of March 14, 2009:

Toro Peak tower views from a recent repair trip by Glen Offield of UCSD/SIO.


Image of March 7, 2009:

Multi-parameter water quality probe


Image of February 28, 2009:

Small ROV in the water underneath Scripps Pier, during a LIVE exercise with attendees of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.


Image of February 22, 2009:

Early morning view across San Diego and into the mountains, as see by an automated 12 megapixel network camera from the NPS Cabrillo National Monument


Image of February 14, 2009:

More snow yet on Toro Peak.


Image of February 7, 2009:

Winter is not over yet! New ice buildup in front of a network camera on Toro Peak.


Image of January 31, 2009:

NPS/SDSU interns Kelly Lion and Sarina Cassaro, working with Jim Hale on replacing network/sensor equipment enclosures at Point Loma.

Photo by Jim Hale.


Image of January 24, 2009:

Solar-powered Tribal Digital Village Network site, hosting a new wireless link to the Pala Learning Center to boost network performance.


Image of January 17, 2009:

Panorama across the Cuyamaca Mountains, from the lake on the left to the ocean on the right.


Image of January 10, 2009:

Moon over Cuyamaca, as seen from an NPS network camera at Point Loma


Image of January 3, 2009:

Birds on a wire: occupying an HPWREN antenna.