Exceptional Seeing At Dome C in Antarctica

Michael Ashley writes "A paper published in Nature today reports on the exceptional astronomical seeing conditions at Dome C (Coral link) in Antarctica. Obtaining the data posed some significant technological challenges, given that Dome C is uninhabited over winter. The experiment was controlled by a PC/104 computer system that had to survive temperatures down to -85C, and supervise the generation of its own electricity using a jet-fuel powered stirling engine. The computer, running Linux, communicated with the outside world using an Iridium phone. The results are also covered in New Scientist, and the Sydney Morning Herald. Disclaimer: I'm a co-author."

Comments

Re:Someone has to ask ...

[LWATCDR]

Actually they should have used netBSD since it runs on everything!
Just kidding. PC/104 is a form factor like ATX or ITX I have seen PowerPC, StrongARM, Mips, and of course x86 based systems use that form factor. Of couse if you run across something that you have never heard about before let me tell you about a little secert. It is called Google! It is so cool. Just go to www.google.com and type in PC/104 and all these neat links show up. I wonder if anyone else knows about it yet :)
Sorry I had to put in the reguired use google comment :)