Owlbert
Owlbert A
Owlbert B
Monitoring station Owlbert was upgraded to seven cameras on July 10, 2006. Currently four of Owlbert's cameras are B&W. I prefer B&W cameras because they are over a hundred times more sensitive to light than color cameras but one of Owlbert's assigned objectives is to collect information on the red phase of mystery lights (MLs). MLs are usually yellow-orange in color but on occasion they are known to turn bright red. The color change is abrupt implying a step change in energy or else a change in combustion elements. MLs typically go out not long after conversion to bright red (suggesting energy or fuel depletion) or else they flare to bright yellow (perhaps because a new fuel bubble has been encountered).
Owlbert's cameras are no where near as light sensitive as Roofus or Snoopy but, unlike Roofus and Snoopy, all of Owlbert's cameras employ anti-blooming circuits and variable magnification. Ranch roads exist every where in Mitchell Flat and some of the roads near Owlbert are nighttime active. Fortunately Owlbert's cameras are able to easily identify vehicles by recording their light beams as shown in the following examples from June 2006:
Observation Summary
Time period Cameras Nights ML nights Frequency of ML nights
5/23/2006 ----> 6/12/2006 2 20 0 0 0%
6/13/2006 ----> 7/7/2006 3 24 0 0 0%
7/8/2006 ------> 7
That Owlbert has yet to detect MLs is not surprising because they are truly rare events and Owlbert's range of practical observation is more limited than is possible with astronomy cameras at Roofus and Snoopy.
Why is this station called Owlbert?
The names of previous monitoring stations, Roofus and Snoopy, reflect aspects of their circumstances and Owlbert is no exception. Owlbert's name is derived in part from the fact that it is housed in an owl's den. Large owls claim the building as their own territory -- intruders enter at their own risk. A few of the interesting inhabitants are shown below:
As has been the case with all our monitoring stations, it will take awhile to begin successfully mining useful data but Owlbert is a truly unique station and we expect great things from images to be collected by this new system.