Here are some photos from my 2014 season at the South Pole in Antarctica. Enjoy!
First, a few highlights:
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| NAMESAKE! |
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| Someone brought a unicycle this year, so I rode it around. Awesome! |
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| Skiing "towards the coast," into the nothingness |
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| Penguins! (Near McMurdo, on the coast) |
And now for the feature presentation...
Traveling into Pole
We were delayed in Christchurch, NZ, for one day by weather on the way is. So we went for a hike.
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| Ben by a very large, old tree in Akaroa |
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| Views down into the bay. It was very windy. |
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| Pegasus "airport" on the Ross Ice-shelf near McMurdo. Mt Erebus and our shuttle bus. |
Work at Pole
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| obligatory glory-shot. |
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| Um, Kyle? Kyle? KYLE!? You can't look through a feed-horn, you plug in a coax cable there... |
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| Partners in crime Ben and Tom |
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| The SPT. Ain't she a beauty? |
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| The SPT dish, from up-close. |
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| We travelled a few kilometers from station to inspect the polarization-calibration source. Me in the middle of nowhere, like really NOWHERE. |
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| What do you do in the middle of the Antarctic desert? Eat snow. Why not? |
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| Looking under the skirt of the snout in preparation for the Black Hole Imager (BHI). |
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| It was warm up there in the sun! So I took a nap. |
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| Dan (top) and Chris in the receiver cabin of the SPT. |
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| Real scientists wear lab coats. |
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| We rode the telescope boom as we lowered the dish into a flat position so we could push in the "panel gap tabs." |
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| Self-portrait, chilling on the dish. |
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| Ben, hard at work while... |
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| ... I take a nap. zzzzzzz... |
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| Martin Lewis, a fixture at the pole for something like 15+ years, heads for the plane and his retirement. Thank for everything Martin! |
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| Yup, the station still runs on fossil-fuels. Research project, anyone? |
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| Colin and the far-field-mirror mounting bar for KECK. |
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| We helped the KECK folks put up this mirror so they can measure their far-field beams. |
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| Martin! Lueker, keeping it real. |
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| self-portrait |
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| Tom, keeping us all safe. |
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| Chalk! at the pole. |
Carp Party!
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| Shuffle-board, made of ice! |
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| Horse-shoes in -20F |
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| Keepin' warm |
Recreation
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| The Carp Shop (Carpenters), the start to the frisbee-golf (folf) course. |
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| Mr. Station Manager tee'ing off on the first hole. |
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| Tee'ing off of a spool of hose. |
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| One of the holes. Get it through the yellow ring. I think he missed. |
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| In it goes! Official folf basket. |
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| Driving, through the abandoned tunnel |
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| Ice Bowling |
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| Skiing with nowhere to go |
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| Our turn-around point |
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| Climbing Castle Rock near McMurdo with Mike the Plumber, and Tom. |
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| Tom sticks the crux traverse in sketchy conditions |
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| Tom, topping out of the difficulties. |
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| Penguins! A group of ~15 emperors had gathered near the ice-road from Pegasus airfield to McMurdo. |
Commute to work
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| The 2013 south-pole marker. |
I don't know if I will be back to pole; this is the last year I will go as a grad student. It's been a great 5 years! Now time to focus on graduating!
