Welcome to KHO ...
Home of The Aurora Forecast 3D app
Status
Optical season in progress...November 28, 2022
High Voltage
OFF 09:30UT ON 12:00UT
Domes
New covers and domes in progress! Heat ON
Bandwagon
Parkerd at Mine 7
Calibration lecture
We are pleased to announce iEarth internship report by Raphael Deirmendjian about calibration stability of the Silver Bullet spectrometer aimed at long term mesospheric temperature retrieval. Well done, Raphael!
Youtube lecture and link to report here.
November 10, 2022
50 ambassadors!
In mid-October we were lucky to host a massive visit of 50 ambassadors to the observatory. The trip was organized by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After 2 lectures at UNIS, 2 bus trips and 4 rides with our bandwagons, the ambassadors were transported up to KHO and informed about our activity.
Link to Svalbardposten (Norwegian) here.
October 12, 2022
Outstanding paper award
Congratulation to our PhD student Marie Bøe Henriksen for receiving the 2022 Outstanding paper award at the 12th Workshop on Hyperspectral Image and Signal Processing: Evolution in Remote Sensing (WHISPERS) in Rome, Italy. Marie has taken a closer look at wavelength calibration. View ceremonial event.
Link to paper here.
September 16, 2022
3D model of KHO
Ever wondered what KHO looks like in 3D from all thinkable angles? Stop wondering, and take a look here at the drone based work of iEarth PhD student Rafael Kenji Horota.
Link to model here.
August 9, 2022
HYPSO-1 works!
We are proud to report together with NTNU AMOS that our satellite named HYPSO (HYPer-spectral Satellite for ocean Observation 1) is working as planned. Access English reader post here.
Norwegian translation published in Svalbardposten.
July 12, 2022
The Rise of Phoenix
The rise of the Svalbard SuperDARN radar masts have been completed by our Postdocs and PhD students, also known as the Snowdrift girls. The original radar was hit hardly by extreme icing conditions back in late October 2018. Good job!
Goto Facebook video link
May 11, 2022
La Professora Partamies!
We congratulate Noora on becoming a full Professor in Middle atmospheric physics at the Geophysical department at UNIS. She has a long history with us, first as a student back in 96 and now she has become a top dog.
Well done Noora!
Mars 11, 2022
Chronicle in Agderposten
The one and only, our Prof. II Pål Brekke has written a news article about Svalbard’s unique position to study the dayside aurora in Agderposten. One of Norway’s largest newspapers.
Read article here
Mars 5, 2022
Night at the Observatory
Read Maria Philippa Rossi’s excellent story of UNIS AGF-301 students staying a night at the observatory. Here they learn how to connect-the-dots between space weather and aurora.
Read article here
February 24, 2022
HSIv6 published!
Congratulation to our PhD student Marie Bøe Henriksen. She has published a Do It Yourself (DIY) paper in Optica on the Hyper Spectral Imager (HSI) version 6, which is a prototype instrument for the HYPSO satellite. The journal reports it as one of the 10 Top downloads from February.
Read paper here
February 16, 2022
HYPSO-1 launched!
HYPer-spectral Smallsat for ocean Observation (HYPSO) was launched today at 15:25UT by a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The satellite contains a hyperspectral imager that is constructed by students at NTNU AMOS based on a design developed at KHO. Salute! We are now space born!
Info:[Press release] [HYPSO-1] [Launch]
January 13, 2022
SVALBIRD airborne!
Together with Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) we congratulate Brandon von Schaik on his Erasmu+ Traineeship at UNIS. He has initiated and evaluated the possibility to use high altitude balloons or drones to detected aurora above the cloud layer of KHO.
Read more here.
December 16, 2021
FINALLY launched!
The C-REX-2A rocket was finally launched succesfully today at 09:25:00 UT from Andøya Space. All twenty of the sub-payloads deployed as planned. Congratulations to the entire team at Andøya, KHO, Svalbard EISCAT radar, Ny-Ålesund and the NASA airplane over Greenland.

See NASA press release.

December 1, 2021
Webmaster: F. Sigernes