Weekly snapshot #35

Things are getting back to normal at Pole...

...and this week's snapshot, back to black. There's one blurry (my hand was shaking) star visible in the shot, I guess, and in person there were tons of stars plus some faint auroras. But really, it's so dark out that when I turned around to go back into the station from the observation deck, I couldn't see the door and had to turn my camera back on to use the light from the viewing screen to find my way.

Life with 48...make that 46.

Very happy to report that the medical evacuation of two of our crew went off without a hitch on Wednesday, and they are safely in South America receiving treatment before continuing on to the U.S. We're waiting for the NSF to approve pictures taken of the evacuation efforts, and if/when that happens I'll post some of those and describe more about that crazy day.


In the meantime, we are now a crew of 46 rather than 48 for the duration of the winter.


My froworker (friend + co-worker = froworker? or co-friend? No. I'll keep working on that...) H posted on her blog about how weird it is how well we've all gotten to know each other and our habits down here. Rather than try to recreate it, I'll just send you her way this week with this embedded link. My sentiments exactly!


Oh, and here is that photo I promised earlier of the 2016 South Pole Winter-over group. Four people were missing for this shot, taken several weeks ago, but I think it still does the job. I'm kneeling at the far right in the black and green jacket.

Weekly snapshot #34

Lots going on down here this week. First of all, today is the solstice! We're really officially half-way through the winter (and had a nice mid-winter dinner celebration on Saturday, followed by the traditional showing of The Shining, which I had never seen and now never need to see again!). From now on, the sun is just getting closer and closer to rising, which actually makes me sad. Time is passing really quickly and this experience is going to be over far too soon, I can already tell. In honor of the exact solstice, a few of us went out to the geographic pole at 10:34am today to mark the moment, do some snow angels, take some pictures, etc. Good stuff.

In other news, you may have heard or seen in/on the news that there will be an imminent attempt at a medical evacuation of two people from South Pole. It is not me; I'm happy and healthy down here! But we do have a couple of folks who need to get out of here for medical reasons badly enough for the program to have decided to undertake the rare, dangerous mission of landing a Twin Otter plane at 90 degrees south in the darkness of mid-winter and flying back out with two of our winter crew in tow. Everything is completely weather-dependent, but it looks like things will happen soon, and that's good because the whole station and everyone in it has been taken over by this event, which is a really, really exhausting, big deal. Hopefully by my next post, all will be said and done and everyone involved will be safe!

In the meantime, it's a shame the weather at Rothera base (last stop before Pole for the medevac plane) has been iffy, as the weather here today is BEAUTIFUL--full moon, low winds, nice temps.

Today's weekly snapshot is definitely indicative of the times. The bright white light in the foreground would usually be verboten, as all outdoor lights are supposed be red lights in the winter so they don't mess up the aurora research projects. But all bets are off as we prepare for the arrival of the medevac flight, and that light is the dozer prepping the runway. Also, you can completely tell from the grey glow of this shot and that you can see the IceCube building off in the distance that the moon is full and shining brightly. It's really funny to see on YouTube the new reports about the evacuation that's being attempted in such a remote, hostile place, while we're all going outside today and saying to each other, "Gosh, it's so nice out!"

Food delivery

As I think I've mentioned before, part of my job as a Materialsperson at South Pole for the winter is the weekly food pull for the galley. We usually end up with three or four carts such as these:

And when luck and weather is on our side, one of us climbs the 92 stairs of the "beer can" stairwell up to the station to receive the carts and roll them into the station to the waiting galley staff while the other two of us stay at the bottom get the carts into the beer can elevator.

However, when temps outside are below -85F, the temperature in the beer can is almost as low and the elevator can't be safely run. So when that happens, we make a call for all hands on station to position themselves all the way up the stairwell and we daisy-chain all the food up the stairs. This happened in May when we had that streak of -100 weather and it was quite a sight to have nearly the entire, 48- person winter crew in the beer can at the same time, steaming up the air with our breath. It's pretty great, though: the whole operation takes less than 20 minutes and since everyone likes to eat, they tend to show up to help!

Weekly snapshot #33

Chilly but lovely day...when I went outside to walk down to work this morning, there was a bright green aurora stretching from one horizon all the way across the sky to the opposite horizon. So beautiful, and the wind (though it picked up throughout the morning) so mild that I stopped and laid down in the snow to watch the sky for a couple of minutes.

AND you get something to look at in the snapshot. The moon rose today! As if it wasn't already beautiful enough.

Auroras

So, sadly but truly (and especially ever since I accidentally threw it on the ground and messed up the viewing screen) my point-and-shoot camera doesn't seem to be able to capture auroras. Which is why I haven't been posting pictures of them, even though few good visibility days go by without them gracing the sky during at least one of my daily outside walks.

For the first few weeks after it started getting dark, I was pretty disappointed by the auroras. It became obvious that they aren't nearly as crisp or brightly colored to the naked eye as they are in so many of the photos I've seen. And at first they were just smoke-colored streaks in the sky, and I was worried that was all there was to it and that the real glory is to be seen through the camera lens, which--thanks to various exposure options--can see colors the human eye can't.

But as the season has gone on, the auroras have gotten better and better to the point that it really is breathtaking when I happen to walk out there to find the whole sky filled with bright green dancing around everywhere. Such a privilege.

All the same, the people here with really good cameras--especially those who have devised warming boxes and have tripods and can set up their cameras outside and leave them in place for nice long exposures--have been getting AMAZING photos that are definitely more spectacular than the eye can see, unless you give extra points for actually being out in the cold and having the experience of seeing them with your own eyes (which I do!).

Here is one such photo, thanks to Hans Boenish.

And then here are a couple more, photo credit Max Peters:

Weekly snapshot #32

Howdy, there. It's pretty chilly at the South Pole at the moment, but the wind is very low and consequently it's actually quite a lovely day for an outside stroll.

Couple stars visible in the snapshot, though the very faint auroras glowing over the telescopes are unfortunately not visible here. Sorry! Hopefully something more interesting next week...???

International Jazz Day, 90 Degrees South-style

A bunch of the musicians on station (i.e., not me) got together and submitted a video of "Summertime" being performed down here, partly to a montage of snow-covered summertime activities happening at Pole. I spent a few hours with these talented folks one Sunday in April, being one of the camera people--great fun!

You can check out the results on any or all of these websites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uN6dUo3a18:

http://jazzday.com/videos/

https://www.facebook.com/intljazzday/videos/980377875350258/?fallback=1

Enjoy!