Subject: Cascades2 report for Wed evening, Feb 18/19.

Well, we're trying to consolidate all of our bad weather conditions
into one (or two?) evenings...there were 50 mph winds at
the Toolik lake camera site, enough to blow out the windows
and let the snow in...Kaktovic was also under solid overcast,
and we at Poker had snow as well.  But there was no aurora
behind all the clouds anyway, as the solar wind continues to
slow and weaken since the activity on the 14th.  We are hopeful
for some improvement in the geophysical activity by the weekend,
based on previous month's activity (the rotation of the sun brings
to some degree the same conditions back around every 27 days or
so.  see the Kp plot which is the first bullet of the
spaceweather page on the www.dartmouth.edu/~aurora site.)
  The pictures for Feb 17 show the rocket on the rail.  When
the picture was taken, the mechanical tech and the safety
person were up in the bucket truck checking the joints between
parts of the rocket;  that is why the launcher is pointed
straight up.  You can see in the background the smaller
Lehmacher payload, which is pointed a few degrees to
the north.  Our nominal elevation will be 82.5 degrees (we want
to go north, not come right back down on ourselves).
The white rectangle that you see is the styrofoam housing
that is used as a chimney to pump warm air around the payload;
when the rocket is launched it rips right through the box.
  The Lehmacher launches made the local newspaper, see:
http://newsminer.com/photos/2009/feb/18/7292/ 
but the big news in Fairbanks is the Yukon Quest which 
began in Whitehorse last weekend and should finish up in 
Fairbanks sometime in the next week:
 http://newsminer.com/photos/2009/feb/19/7298/