Moon Dog

A moon dog came out today, not quite as spectacular as a sun dog, but still pretty cool.



The moon is not quite full yet but it's bright enough out to walk around without a flashlight and not trip over sastrugi.

You can even see the path in the snow that we walk to get to ARO and back!

On a side note, I broke my flip flops..... for the 4th time this year and I don't think that I will be able to fix them this time. So my next project will be to make new flip flops.

Moon and ARO time lapses

The moon came up today!

Here is the time lapse of the Milky Way over ARO from yesterday!

Bonus Milky Way star trails from the time lapse yesterday.

Beautiful afternoon for star gazing at -100 F

Here is a link to the camera that is mounted on ARO looking back at the station, if you are lucky you might even see me walking to ARO and back to the station. I usually do that walk in the evening time in Pacific Standard Time.

 I took another time lapse today of the milky way and the some auroras. Today was one of the clearest days we have had all winter.

While the camera was taking pictures for the time lapse I went on the roof with my book of the stars and found a few more of the lesser constellations.

 The Milky Way and the Auroras turned out pretty awesome! The picture below you can see just a tiny bit of the lasers (it was so clear out you could barely see them) and a shooting star!



 We also broke -100 F today. It has been hovering at about -100 F all day. It really doesn't feel that much colder, if anything it was beautiful day because of the light wind.

First attempt at star trails

It captured star trails, faint aurora, ARO, lidar lasers and five iridium flares that were an accident. Iridium flares are the sun reflecting off of iridium satellites making them as bright as the brightest stars in the sky and sometimes brighter. This is a compilation of about a half hour worth of pictures. There is a corresponding time-lapse with a lot more auroras in it but it's too big of a file so I will have to shrink it before I upload it.

Perfect Sunday Afternoon

 Had a fantastic day off setting up a Scott tent out by the pole marker yesterday. I took a time lapse of the time we spent outside setting up the tent in clear -85 F/-65 C under a sky brightly lit up by the best aurora display of the season so far.

I caught a shooting star too. The tent is lit up by the flashlight I left on the ground to light up the area where we were working.

Here is the video:

Perfect Sunday Afternoon at the Pole from Marissa Goerke on Vimeo.
 

May Mission Part 2

Early this week clouds rolled in completely obscuring the stars and reducing the moon to a light smudge in the sky. The clouds raised the ambient temperature dramatically to the mid-fifties; warm enough to run most heavy equipment.

The station was a frenzy of activity taking advantage of the warmer temperatures despite the ten knot winds and blowing snow.  The tri-walls where we depose of trash needed moving, the ‘trash yacht’ (the very large sled where the tri-walls are kept to keep from drifting in) had to be moved to clear the drifts around ‘D-Z’ (Destination Zulu, basically our main door to the backyard). The drifts outside the beer can and leading up the large drift to the flag line to ARO were plowed back down to a nice gradual slope. It won’t take long for the wind to drift the area back in to a few three or four foot high drifts the stretch across the path but it’s better than climbing up the side of the huge drift in front of the station.

The warmer weather also allowed for another trip out in the LMC to find the misbehaving experiment 1.5 miles downwind of the station. Visibility was a lot worse for this trek out making the going a lot slower. Before heading out I looked up the aerial photographs of the station from this past summer to get a better idea of where the experiment was hiding in the dark. With this reorientation I was able to navigate through the dark featureless landscape that is the end of the world and was able to find the site without any major issues.

The mission was only a half success because there was nothing visibly wrong with the instrument even though it lost communication several weeks ago. It was a eerie sight to see the LMC light up a small bubble of the complete black abyss of the world around us.

 The station lights were visible in the distance, but only just.  There is something strange, exciting and other worldly about being able to count on two hands the specks of red light that make up the entirety of the habitable world for a thousand miles in any direction.  

Today we leave twilight behind and officially enter night conditions until sometime in late July or August.

May Moonlight Mission

 Last week I was tasked with checking on spice core and another experiment fairly far away from station. We had to wait for a day that was warm enough to drive the LMC and where visibility was good enough to be able to find and follow the flag line out about 3 km from the station.

 As it turns out following the flag line even in clear weather was fairly difficult but after a few wrong turns we finally made it out there to check on the drifting and status of the buildings out at spice core.

 These are boxes that were put on top of old spools to prevent them from drifting in over the winter.

 Spice core is a summer only operation all of their equipment is stored at the site.

The moon and the head lamps gave everything a slightly eerie hue.

 It was definitely weird to be this far away from the station.

 The drifting wasn't too bad and everything was as it should be.

 The lights on the horizon to right are the station.

 I nice shot of SPT on the way back to the station.

The moon, the station and the VMF (vehicle maintenance facility) from the back yard. We tried to find the other site we were supposed to check on but there is no flag line and we only had a general idea of where we were going. After futilely searching in the dark we started to get cold and had to head back in for dinner. We will attempt that adventure again another day.

Moon Walk

 The moon came back late last week. It hasn't been clear since it came out until today.

 It seems so bright after the past few weeks of darkness.

 You can't even see the milky way anymore!

 And it casts shadows!