A green laser pierces the clear night sky

On Saturday (18 December) in the evening everyone was invited to join the prepared cinema outside on the helideck. While watching Pirates of the Carribean some were afraid of the pirates, others were amazed by the whole setup, being in cinema under the sky full of stars next to the ocean in the middle of the Atlantic. On Sunday Polarstern approached another air mass. The Tropos guys found in the lidar data, that the air contained more Saharan dust than the days before. Also, the DWD guys were sure there must have been desert dust in these clouds, as they had a totally different structure than usual. 

On Monday morning at 6am the Tropos guys had to get up early in order to launch a radiosonde in addition to the radiosondes that are launched at noon by the DWD. The reason was a nearby overpass of the satellite Aeolus. Amongst other parameters, it measures wind in the atmosphere and the radiosonde data is a perfect chance to compare, validate, and calibrate the satellite data. The data is obviously beneficial, as there are only very rare regular radiosonde launches on the ocean.