The Millimeter Sky Transparency Imager (MiSTI)

The Millimeter Sky Transparency Imager (MiSTI) is a small millimeter-wave scanning telescope with a 25-cm diameter dish operating at 183 GHz. MiSTI is installed at Atacama, Chile, and it measures emission from atmospheric water vapor and its fluctuations to estimate atmospheric absorption in the millimeter to submillimeter. MiSTI observes the water vapor distribution at a spatial resolution of 0.5 deg, and it is sensitive enough to detect an excess path length of <~ 0.05 mm for an integration time of 1 s. By comparing the MiSTI measurements with those by a 220 GHz tipper, we validate that the 183 GHz measurements of MiSTI are correct, down to the level of any residual systematic errors in the 220 GHz measurements. Since 2008, MiSTI has provided real-time (every 1 hr) monitoring of the all-sky opacity distribution and atmospheric transmission curves in the (sub)millimeter through the internet, allowing to know the (sub)millimeter sky conditions at Atacama.