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Aras de los Olmos Observatory

The OAO (Observatory of Aras de los Olmos – Universidad de Valencia) is the monitoring station owned by Astronomical Observatory of Universidad de Valencia. It’s situated at municipality of Aras de los Olmos, on the grindstone of Santa Catalina.

CERCA2 Computer

Computer for massive computing maintained by staff of the Computing Centre of the Universitat de València.

Calibration laboratory

Radiometric calibration laboratory.

Climate-meteorological database

It uses daily data from the conventional network of observatories of the State Meteorological Agency (period 1950-2013), and data from the meteorological towers that the CEAM-UVEG Joint Unit has available for climatic analysis. The development of the software developed by the research group itself allows the validation and computer exploitation of the database, with the performance of a wide range of climatological calculations and analyses.

Cloud measuring station
Vaisala CL51 Ceilometer. Laser instrument that works in a single elastic channel at 910nm. Compared to the measurements of the other two systems, the CL51 measurements are less accurate and are more affected by noise, especially during the day. The advantage is that the CL51 works continuously, has a lower overlap height than that of the other lidar systems (around 150 meters) and offers data with a spatial resolution of 10 meters. The CL51 measurements are currently used for the determination of the height of the base of the clouds and the qualitative analysis of the evolution of the aerosols in the lower layers of the atmosphere.
Compute-intensive server Lluís Vives

78 cores of dedicated use Lluís Vives computationally intensive server at the Universitat.

Compute-intensive servers

Several compute-intensive servers (total number of cores approx. 256; total RAM approx. 1 Tb) purchased for the research projects of the group members.

Confocal Microscope

Confocal fluorescence scanning microscope.

DNA and RNA molecular analysis and bioinformatics

Genetic analysis with high-performance servers, server-attached computers, bioinformatics software, development of working algorithms.

Flavour Group Processor Farm

Calculation farm funded by PROMETEO projects.

Flow cytometry

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of microbial populations by flow cytometry.

Geographic Information System (GIS)

Used for the spatial processing of information and databases in the UV GIS Laboratory. It has ArcGIS software, which is a powerful information platform with various applications for the processing and design of all the spatial analysis of the data.

Geographic information systems (GIS)

Servers and software for spatially explicit cataloguing and integration of environmental information.

Hydrochemistry

Water and sediment analysis laboratory.

IFIC Computing Centre

Distributed computing structure: IFIC's GRID-CSIC.

KALEO system

System for the characterisation and optical quality control of intraocular lenses using optical interferometry techniques.

Large culture chamber

Chamber that allows experimentation with large aquariums and plant cultures.

Live macrophyte cultures

Macrophyte live cultures resource.

LluisVives (LV) Computer

Computer for massive parallel computing maintained by staff of the Computing Centre of the Universitat de València.

Measurement of broadband UVB radiation by means of one radiometer (6 Yankee UVB-1 radiometers) and of spectral UVB radiation

The UVB-1 radiometer has a spectral range between 280 and 400 nm but is designed to have a spectral sensitivity close to the erythemal action spectrum. The UVB-1 is designed to be stable over long periods of time and to operate continuously and autonomously in the field. Measurements were taken and stored with the same procedure used in the above cases. The Optronic 754 is equipped with a double monochromator, with a spectral range that extends from 250 nm to 800 nm, with a FWHM of 1.6 nm allowing measurements to be made with a minimum wavelength step of 0.05 nm. The detector is a solid-state photomultiplier, temperature stabilised by the Peltier effect.

Measurement at ground level

The equipment consists of a double Nephelometer with conditioner for the measurement of aerosol dispersion, an etalometer for the measurement of aerosol absorption, and a TSI-APS for the measurement of size distribution.

Measurement of carbonate greenhouse gas fluxes

Gas accumulation chambers and tubes for experimental measurements, various CO₂ and CH4 measurement systems (absorption spectroscopy, infrared detection -IRGA, semi-conduction).

Measurement of the aerosol column and its vertical distribution

It consists of two CIMEL photometers and two PREDE POM radiometers for the measurement of the aerosol column. A Ceilometer and a lidar are also available to study its vertical profile.

Microscopy

Research optical and fluorescence microscopes and stereo microscopes.

Molecular taxonomy and functional microbial ecology

Molecular biology tools.

Network Attached Storage (Protocols FTP/HTTP & SAMBA) with redundant backup 24 TB capacity

Image storage server.

Nissan Patrol vehicle

For field trips and equipment transport. Also allows field measurement by placing the sensors on an additional articulated arm.

Phytoplankton and zooplankton samples and cultures

Collection of samples and cultures of the different species of Iberian inland waters.

Pulsed light source characterisation laboratory

A laboratory is available for the study of the properties and characterisation of ultra-short nanosecond pulsed light sources such as LEDs and pulsed lasers. The laboratory is equipped to measure properties such as energy, wavelength, time width and angular distribution. It has high-precision oscilloscopes, ultra-fast photomultipliers, optical tables, black boxes, energy meters, xy-positioning table and various electronic equipment.

Rack Raid Cabinet for virtualisation of IT systems

It is a high-performance mass storage computer system, with a set of redundant disks that allows a 24-hour service to be offered. The technical characteristics of the equipment are as follows:

  • 19-inch rack format.
  • 4 x 10 GbE iSCSI iSCSI host channels / ports with SFP+ connector.
  • 2 SAS expansion ports.
  • Support for RAID 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60.
  • Redundant controller and hot swap.
  • 2 GB cache memory per controller.
  • Hot swap cache battery per controller.
  • Dynamic capacity expansion.
  • LUN Mapping.
  • Possibility of hot spare and hot swap disks.
  • Redundant power supply and fan modules.
  • Backplane for 16 SAS 6 Gbit disks.
  • 16 Hitachi 600 Gbytes 15,000 rpm 6 Gbit SAS disks.
  • Capacity to support up to 112 SAS 6 Gbit disks.
  • SES/SMART.
  • Management via LCD with keypad, telnet over Ethernet and web browser with GUI.
  • Remote alarm notification.
Radiometers

There is currently a network of radiometers located in part of the CEAM Foundation's network of meteorological stations that are in operation and distributed throughout the Valencian Community.

Research Group Laboratory

Six workstations with computers. Own software + 3 ENVI-IDL licences + 2 ARCGIS 8 licences.

Satellite image reception station

The UCG has, among other scientific instrumentation, two satellite image reception antennas corresponding to the MSG (Meteosat Second Generation) and NOAA satellites, as well as a reception station for obtaining images from the TERRA, AQUA and NPP satellites (www.uv.es/iplsat/).

 

Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor

Measurement of optical aberrations of ophthalmic lenses.

Simulaciones numéricas

Monte Carlo simulations induced on Markov chains.

Simulations of quantum field theories in the lattice

Numerical simulation of lattice field theories is computationally intensive and requires very sophisticated algorithms. Our group has extensive experience in the use of these techniques.

Software

The UCG has software licences for satellite image processing.

Solar Radiation Measuring Station

Kipp & Zonen Solar Station. It's available since 2010. The solar station is composed of a solar tracker Solys-2 with active solar tracking. On this solar tracker have been installed some instruments such as the CMP21 radiometer for the measurement of global and diffuse solar radiation (in broadband), CHP1 pyrheliometer for the measurement of direct broadband solar radiation and CGR4 pyrgeometer for the measurement of long-wave downward radiance. The group has two measuring stations in Burjassot and Aras de los Olmos.

Spectrofluorimetry

High-precision spectrofluorometer.

Statistical analysis

The UV Statistics Unit works with experts in the use of computer equipment and specific software. The main software used for data analysis is the free R Software.

System for the evaluation of roadside equipment and image processing systems

A steel gantry with a span of 18 m and a gauge of 550 m, located on the CV 35 road, is available for the evaluation of traffic monitoring systems in real conditions of luminosity and traffic. The gantry consists of 3 mobile CCTV cameras of different quality, an infrared spotlight, an electronic toll sensor and a magnetic sensor located under the gantry. The information from the systems is sent to an ERU and from there to the laboratory from where images are received in real time and the installed equipment can be controlled.

T50

The T50 telescope is a 51 cm aperture reflector with a Robotic German Equatorial mount that can autonomously perform the observations programmed for it. It is located at the Aras de los Olmos Observatory.

TROBAR

The TROBAR telescope (Aras Robotic Telescope) is a 60 cm aperture reflector with a Robotic German Equatorial mount that can autonomously perform the observations programmed for it. It is located at the Aras de los Olmos Observatory.

Thermal cameras

The UCG has thermal cameras working in the 8-14 micrometre band for in situ measurement of the earth’s surface temperature.

Thermal radiometers

The UCG has numerous thermal radiometers working in the 8-14 micrometre band for in situ measurement of the earth’s surface temperature.

Turia 1

The Turia 1 telescope is a 14 cm wide-field aperture refractor with a Robotic German Equatorial mount that can autonomously perform the observations programmed for it. It is located at the Aras de los Olmos Observatory.

Turia 2

The Turia 2 telescope is a 51 cm wide-field aperture reflector with a Robotic German Equatorial mount that can autonomously perform the observations programmed for it. It is located at the Aras de los Olmos Observatory.

Unbinned search methods

The aim is to search for accumulations of events in the sky above what is expected from the background of muons and neutrinos produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere. From the estimates of this background, the characteristics of the signal (spatial distribution and energy spectrum) and of the detector (angular resolution and effective area), it is possible to establish event selection criteria that optimise the sensitivity of the analysis. The main element to distinguish between signal and background is the fact that the latter is diffuse while the former is spatially concentrated around the source. In addition, this discrimination is also aided by the difference in energy spectra. The algorithm to perform this search is based on a likelihood function where this information is included. A "blinded" procedure is followed for the data, i.e. the complete information about the position of the events is not accessed until the selection criteria have been optimised.

n09 Computer

Computer for massive computing also maintained by staff of the Computing Centre of the Universitat de València.

som1 and som2

24 and 48 core servers with Infiniband. 

theory.ific.uv.es

High-performance cluster with 48 processors (232 cores) with Infiniband.