THE DOPPLER RAYLEIGH LIDAR SYSTEM AT ARECIBO

We describe the instrument structure and the operation of a Doppler Ra yleigh lidar located at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The de vice consists of an injection seeded, frequency doubled, Nd:YAG laser coupled with a small Newtonian telescope and a single etalon, Fabry-Pe rot interferometer in its receiver. With this combination of transmitt er and receiver, observations of the Doppler spectral components of th e Rayleigh backscattered signal from the atmosphere are possible. With it we have obtained the neutral winds and temperatures up to mesosphe ric heights. We also discuss the improvements to the instrument that a re underway, enabling us to increase the temporal and spectral samplin g of the winds.