Departure

I am no longer at the South Pole. After being there since January, I have finally left, along with the rest of the winter-overs. My journey back home began on a LC-130 flight from the South Pole to McMurdo. The pilots decided to grant us a surprise - a low pass through the Dry Valleys.

Dry Valleys from the LC-130 window

This was quite a treat - few people ever get to see the Dry Valleys, and we flew right through them, as in below the mountain tops. Pretty crazy stunt for a Herc. After stopping in McMurdo for a couple of nights we continued on our way to Christchurch, this time flying a DC-17. I didn't fly a C-17 on the way in because the runway was too soft in January, but in the November the runway is still hard enough to operate the gigantic, wheeled jet aircraft.

Our transport from McMurdo to Christchurch

Boarding

The C-17 is an enormous aircraft. It's mostly empty in the photo below because it was mostly used to transport cargo down to the pole, although there are a couple mail pallets in the back.

After landing in Christchurch we were greeted by rain, something we hadn't experienced all year. Overall adjusting to normal society traveling around New Zealand was a fairly smooth transition. 

Other boarding passes:

• Our flight back from pole included a person who went down to be a fire tech, had a few days look around, and decided it wasn't for him and quit. I guess this happens sometimes. 
• Most people do some travel after returning from the ice, since we fly back to New Zealand and can extend our stay there, or we can completely exchange our return ticket for a travel voucher. 

 Next Week in Pole: Nothing!

Actually, I'll probably make another post when I finish my aurora movie and another about finding jobs in antarctica.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

This Week in Pole brings changes, station opening, the official arrival of the summer season, new people... none of which have to be dealt with for long (fortunately) as it also means us winter-overs will soon (or already are) leaving the ice.

The first Herc of the summer finally reaches the Pole

New people and cargo are all brought to the South Pole from McMurdo via LC-130 (Hercules) planes operated by the Air National Guard. This year they set out from their base in New York with five planes, and subsequently left a trail of broken planes on their route to Christchurch/McMurdo. A week ago there wasn't even a functioning Herc on the continent. Now there are two. Because of a mix of these mechanical failures and bad weather, we received our first plane on 11/6, as opposed to 11/1. This backs up all the replacements and turnover for the summer season, and means many people may be getting out of there later than planned. 

New people on station means everything is changing rapidly as the summer season has officially started. But it's interesting to see just how the station itself has changed over the course of the winter. For one, large drifts develop over the course of the winter which must be plowed away during the summer.

"MAPO mountain"

A two-story drift develops around MAPO, a building in the dark sector that houses the machine shop and SPUD/Keck telescope. The drift is actually almost two stories tall, the windows you see there are the second story of the MAPO building, and the doors on the lower level are obscured by central smaller drift.

Drift upwind from the station

You can also see a drift develop upwind from the main station. The station is supposed to prevent drifts from forming under the station, and as you can see the area under the station is relatively flat. Apparently in 2012 this drift had hardly formed at all, but because not enough personnel are sent down in summer to properly clear it, the drift has been getting worse each year after that.

It is also interesting how our interactions have changed over the winter. At the start of the winter everyone was very friendly to each other, mostly because you don't want to start off on a bad footing with someone you will spend the next 9 months with. Of course, over time us winter-overs learned what truly terrible human beings each other are. Conflicts inevitably develop, resulting in hate, which festers over the course of the winter until it blossoms into spite - the purest of human emotions. Still, open conflict is rare - no one wants to rock the boat too much while everyone still has months to go. However, the final week before people depart, everyone will shortly fly off the ice and soon enough practically be dead to each other, allowing a unique opportunity to completely tell someone off right before parting ways. It's a beautiful thing.

At the end of winter, successful winter-overs are all given the Antarctic Service Medal. Anyone who spends 15-30 days below 60 degrees South in support of the USAP receives one of these, but winter-overs receive an extra "wintered over" bar.

Shiny

Other snowdrifts:

• I avoid the new folks by hiding in my room. Every new named learned is a personal defeat.
• In addition to LC-130s, DC-17s are also used for flights in between Christchurch and McMurdo. The Hercs also service larger field camps and other stations nearby McMurdo. 
• The first herc also brought everyone their first mail, and in a few flights some of our mail should finally get out. 
• The crew that came in early on the Basler managed to fix the Rodwell, so we are now on full water usage!
• No, no one at pole voted because our mail-in ballots wouldn't reach the states in time

Next Week in Pole: All the Hercs on continent cease to function

Packing for Pole

This week in pole I'll be discussing how to pack for a winter at the South Pole. Hopefully this is useful for future winterovers that stumble across this. As I am now packing my things up to leave the pole, I'm able to better reflect on what was actually necessary and what was completely useless down here.

Of course, you really don't need to bring anything. You could show up at the pole for a winter with 7 pairs of underwear, a pair of sneakers, and $500 in cash and be able to survive off of everything on station. You might have trouble getting through TSA with just that on, but still, down here there's a library with books and dvds, a computer lab if you don't have a laptop, and a station store to buy toiletries and clothes (which most people buy and wear around all the time anyway).

Anyway, like a good capitalist I wanted to bring my own stuff. I modeled the organization of my list off of one I found from Jeffrey Donenfeld's blog. Here's what I brought and some notes on if I thought it was necessary:

Mostly I found that I didn't bring too much in excess. Some notes of reflection:

• Contacts! USAP said that contacts are bad here because of the dryness, but in my experience glasses were worse outside because of the fogging. It made aurora viewing much more unpleasant trying to wipe my glasses every minute. I'd definitely also bring a face mask to avoid glasses/goggle fogging. Something like the ones available from Cold Avenger.
• I brought too many t-shirts and long-sleeve tops. Since I ended up purchasing some clothes at the station store, the extra clothes I brought were even more unnecessary. Plus it is so dry here that you don't sweat as much and can wear the same t-shirt 7 days in a row no problem (this might only be because I have absolutely no sense of smell). 
• Even though the station store has toiletries, you might as well bring all the ones you will use. After all, this year our store ran out of floss a couple months into winter. 
• I would have shaved more often if I had brought an electric razor
• I covered what camera(s) to bring here
• Rechargeable batteries and chargers were available on station (or at least a SPT). 
• Some things, like fleece tops, glove liners, hats, and socks are provided in the ECW gear, however if you have favorites that are more comfortable consider bringing them. 
• It could be nice to bring down some food you know isn't available here, and open it mid-winter. I didn't do this but SPT had a box arranged for us that we opened mid-winter. 
• Could have used a French Horn down here, and Rock Band video game with drum set. 
• Hardly anybody played Smallworld with me (jerks), might have had better luck with Twilight Imperium. My plan to descend the station into a modern Lord of the Flies with a game of Diplomacy (already on station) failed, although there is a pig's head on a stick down here, but pandemonium spread anyways several months later during the Great Water Crisis. 

If you are fortunate enough to know you will be going to Pole several months in advance, you can plan ahead and ship everything to yourself. Your address at Pole with be an APO, and everything will be shipped to you via Guard Mail. The price to ship things to/from pole is therefore just like using the US postal service in the states (so very cheap considering where you're shipping to/from). I didn't know I was coming down here early enough to use this, but I did ship several boxes home.

I should also note that down here you can get Prodeals on several sites. So if there is equipment you with to have only for travel afterwards, consider purchasing after you are down here and get a USAP email address. Just note it is hard to get it down here, you will have to find a way to get it to Christchurch for when you leave the ice. I got prodeals for promotive, Osprey, smartwool, and several other companies. 

Other Toiletries:

• The Basler didn't actually take our mail out, because they needed a cargo number from up North that the cargo archons in denver would not provide. Typical government operation.
• The Basler did take a polie away. One of our VMF guys had been on continent since Winfly 2013 (so here 14 months or so) and we very eager to leave. So he did. 
• The Basler also returned with people from McMurdo who brought a new hot-water drill to help fix the Rodwell. They seem to actually be making some progress. 
• We didn't do anything special for Halloween because everyone hates each other too much, but someone did put out year-old candy corn in the galley, which disappeared surprisingly fast -- I guess we are all hungry for a taste other than the usual galley fare. 
• We did have our last concert, a "punk rock" show, because we were too lazy to move the equipment from the band room and crammed all 7 people who showed up into the small room. 
• We were supposed to have our first C-130 flight in yesterday (November 1st), but it was delayed due to lack of plane and weather. We are expecting two flights on Monday, November 3rd. That could be 40-60 new people. Dreadful. 

Next Week in Pole: Definitely not murdering anyone!

Aerial View

NASA's IceBridge mission recently flew over the South Pole and took this cool aerial shot.

I'm reposting it here with with descriptions:

In the upper-left you can see the "dark sector", which is home to the South Pole Telescope, Ice Cube Laboratory, and MAPO/SPUD (which is another telescope and a machine shop). South Pole Station is to the center, and you can see the three berthing units and gym extending from the station. To the upper-right of the station is the NOAA building, situated in the "clean air sector" (wind primarily comes from this direction). Below the station is "the berms" which is the storage/junkyard/graveyard of the South Pole. Below that is the RF sector, housing the satellite dishes that provide internet and transmit our science data. The "end of the world" is an emergency cache of fuel. 

I think a lot of people imagine a single station with a couple outbuildings surrounded by pristine snow, but the bird's eye view shows a different story. Things rarely leave this place once they are here, and therefore a large collection of junk has accumulated from old projects and past construction projects. 

The shot was taken just a day or two ago, so you can still see the Basler planes in the photo.

Winding Down

Each day now we get closer to station opening, November 1st. This is the nominal date when we will see our first LC-130 flight (weather permitting). Inbound LC-130s have to wait until the temperatures are reliably above -50 F because that is the lowest temperature their landing gear hydraulics are rated for.

Even though the station has not yet opened, we have already seen a couple Twin Otters and Baslers fly through. Seeing the first new faces in 8 months, I did my best to completely avoid them. Although, one of the Basler crews was nice enough to bring in fresh fruit ("freshies"), and I enjoyed my first apple in months. The Basler's are actually still here, unable to escape the pole due to the poor weather we've been having the past week.

A Basler aircraft is stuck at the south pole in blowing snow. 

When the Basler's finally do make it out, they might even take some mail for us, which normally takes a long time to make it out on the LC-130s.

The Twin Otters and Baslers are operated by Kenn Borek Air, and fly down from Canada to McMurdo, where they service field camps. So unlike the LC-130s flying to Pole from Christchurch, they fly from Canada through the Americas, cross from Chile to Rothera Station, and then fly to Pole. I think sometimes they stop along the way, landing in the middle of nowhere to switch from tires to skies.

Although the winter is winding down, the work load on station has been increasing. On top of the ongoing Rodwell repairs, preparing for opening means that everyone is busy cleaning and organizing the station for the 40 people that will come in on the first flight. People who operate the loaders have been busy grooming the runway for incoming flights.


Other outgoing mail:

• Everyone has also been busy packing up their rooms, and planning travel
• I'm one of the unlucky ones who has to move rooms for the new people coming in, so I have to move rooms 10 days before I fly out anyway - this is a process winterovers generally consider extremely unfair
• The weather the past week has been extremely poor, meaning the Kenn Borek Air crews have been stuck on station for days. I've been doing my best to hide. 
• But wait! If there was a window of good weather, why wasn't the runway groomed? Why didn't the groomers get the previous day off so that they could prepare the runway overnight when the weather improved? Isn't getting the Baslers off base top priority since one of them is supposed to immediately return from McMurdo with a group of technicians that are supposed to fix the Rodwell? Why is the only person on station with experience as a fuelie no longer working in the fuel pit? These are good questions... please consult the Logic Column. 

Next Week in Pole: Trying to take over the world

The Great Water Crisis of 2014

The past few weeks have brought a flurry of activity to the station as we suffered a failure of our primary water system. As I've previously mentioned, we get our water from a pump that goes into a rodwell. Basically we shoot enough hot water down into a hole in the ice to maintain a pool of liquid water, which we pump back up to use. However, a few weeks ago this pump died. Because of this, we switched to a Snow Melter for our water supply. This means someone has out with a loader/tractor and retrieve snow to dump in the snow melter. While all of this was getting running, we were on conservative water ratios, so no showers or laundry. Now we are limited to one laundry or 2-minute shower a week (as opposed to the normal two showers and one laundry load).

I don't want to spend too much of the post assigning blame, but the general consensus is that the various temperatures on the control computer have been maladjusted by He Who Shall Not Be Named the entire season, to the dismay of all the utilities technicians on station. The temperature controls may have been maladjusted to the point where the water pump in the rodwell finally failed. Not only has this caused tons of extra work for people on station, but it also is likely costing the antarctic program hundreds of thousands in dollars. There were also repairs to the rodwell system done over last summer's season that weren't optimal, which also contributed to the failure.

Overall, I'd say one of the most surprising things I've found working at the South Pole is failures such as these. Some of the processes, e.g. hiring, psych evaluation procedures, internet controls etc. are really illogical. We have a procedure for dealing with instances like this, the logic column:

When you hear about something illogical done in the antarctic program, you bang your head on the logic column.

That being said, most of the people working here on station are great, and most of the people in Denver are too.


Other Logical Inconsistencies:

• [redacted]
• The world experts in ice drilling were required to fix the rodwell last Summer. They offered to come back to help fix our current rodwell problems but USAP has declined in favor of trying the same techniques that didn't work last summer.

Next Week in Pole: Ebola!

Good Morning Sunshine

September 23rd marked the spring equinox here in the southern hemisphere, and with it came the rising of the sun. The week and a half prior to the sun marked a steady brightening of the atmosphere. Known in the photography world as the "magic hour", for weeks before and after sunrise we have a happy medium of sunlight, bright enough not to stumble around on the sastrugi, but not yet bright enough to warrant shades. The dark sky eventually shrinks to form a mere shadow of the earth. 

The photo above shows a panorama of the earth's shadow. The sun is behind camera, below the horizon. The Earth's shadow is visible anywhere, but especially so at the South Pole due to the flat ice plain that extends in every direction and the long duration of the sunrise/sunset. The photo was taken 8-10 days before sunrise. The curved earth's surface projects onto the atmosphere, the dark blue shade is lined with purples that brighten as the sun nears the horizon and the shadow shrinks.

Before the sun physically crosses the horizon, you can start to see the refracted image of the sun, depending on the atmospheric conditions.

The above shot shows the refracted image of the sun, you can see the wavy nature of the image created by the layers in the earth's atmosphere. At these times, if you are lucky, you can see the "green flash".

The Green Flash occurs when a layer of the refracted image separates, isolating some greens and blues above the main image of the sun. The picture above, taken through a telescope, shows the separated Green Flash layer. 

Sunrise also brings some other interesting atmospheric effects, such as the Sun Pillar shown above, a result of ice crystals in the atmosphere and some other science taking place while the sun is obscured behind the clouds. 

Unlike sunset, which was mostly obscured by clouds and storms after the sun crossed the horizon, the days leading up to sunrise brought some nice cloud formations like the one shown above. 

Per South Pole tradition, we also had a sunrise dinner. Unlike the sunset dinner and mid-winter dinner, sunrise was more informal - more of a cocktail party. The reason for this is that by this point in winter everyone hates each other too much to sit at the same table for two hours. Most importantly, sunrise dinner marked the reveal of the 2015 South Pole Marker. Each year, the winter machines builds the new South Pole Marker. At new years, they recalculate where the actual South Pole is and put a new marker at the correct position. 

The above shot shows the station machinist with the new marker he made. We voted on the design and his was the winner. The new marker will be installed on New Years 2015. Unfortunately, there is an inexplicable NSF policy not to reveal the new marker before hand, which is why it is pixilated. 

Shortly after sunrise the telescope broke again, here's a photo of the repairs for no particular reason. 

Other rays of sunshine:

• No, just because the sun is up doesn't mean it's warm all of the sudden. The temperatures won't regularly get above -50 F for another month, that's why there aren't planes yet.
• You can also see a green flash by staring directly at the sun for thirty seconds and then looking in any direction

Next Week in Pole: Spitefulness Versus Time in South Pole Winterovers - A Case Study

Twilight Ascends

Several weeks ago (I'm quite behind here) brought astronomical twilight, followed by nautical twilight and civil twilight. During this period sunlight slowly erased the stars from the nighttime sky, illuminating an ever growing region of the horizon with pink and purple light. 

The end of aurora season officially erases any reason for existing here, but it does illuminate the cloud structure, which is nice.

As people start to see the sun, they become aware that eventually, they will leave this place. There's a reason september is known as "Shopping September". All the paychecks we have accumulated are suddenly spent on items we'll receive upon returning hope, and weeks later forget about. People also spend a significant amount of time discussing and planning for the upcoming travel when they get off the Ice. 

Other notes:

• No more aurora, ever...

Next Week in Pole: Staring at the Sun. 

Emergency Response

In the event of an emergency during the winter, South Pole Station is pretty much on its own. The winter station is staffed with a doctor and a nurse and has a comprehensive medical facility that has in the past handled operations such as appendectomies. Although evacuations can be called in for an urgent medical situation (the last one was in 1999), it is very expensive and dangerous. Basically, a flight needs to be contracted from the flyers that are used during the Summer at McMurdo to service the field camps. From the time a flight is requested to when it is approved and makes its way from Canada to the South Pole takes about a month, after which the plane has to land in the dark on a runway lit by trash can fires (or at least I assume). 

Because of the remoteness of the station, all winterovers are trained to take part in emergency response teams (ERTs). The three emergency response teams are Fire Team, Medical, and Logistics. Each ERT meets about once a week to train in their specialty. 

Fire Team responds during an emergency drill

Fire Team is responsible for putting out small fires and clearing areas. However, because of the lack of any firefighting equipment besides bunker gear and fire extinguishers, in the case of a real fire the fire team would most likely just watch the building burn down. Medical team is responsible for first aid on the scene of an incident and for transporting injured personnel back to the medical lab, and are also trained to help the medical staff with injured patients. The logistics team is supposed to deal with making sure the necessary emergency response equipment is available on an incident cite and manages vehicle transport to the incident site. 

A patient is treated in the medical facility during an emergency drill

Every month there is an emergency response drill where fake incidents are staged an the ERTs practice their roles. 

Medical Team members package a patient for transport during an emergency drill

I'm a member of the medical response team, which I enjoy because we get to learn different medical tests/procedures each week. However, because of poor leadership our trainings haven't been very helpful the past few weeks. As it gets closer to the first flight out, people just stop caring as much. So although I did get to wound someone while practicing IVs, we probably will never learn X-rays. 

Other info:

• Another emergency response situation is if someone happens to be lost outside in low visibility windstorm. 
• We do actually have a cyanide antidote kit in medical
• We call the station doctor 'Doc' and I doubt if half the people on station know his real name
• This morning we had a meeting to discuss what to do if a plane crashes. Basically, we have no capability to deal with such a situation

Next week in Pole: The mystery of Nibiru and the South Pole Telescope!

South Pole Aurora Photography

With twilight rapidly erasing away the night sky, soon the stars will be completed washed out by the approaching sunlight. The aurora shot below is one of my last. The purple is most visible in the aurora seen near sunrise/sunset, because it requires sunlight reaching high in the atmosphere to induce the purple emission in nitrogen that is pre-excited by solar particles.

Although I was able to get some good aurora shots over the winter, I came to the pole woefully unprepared, so this week I'll be discussing the best cameras to bring to the South Pole to photograph aurora as a guide for future South Pole winterovers and aurora photographers. 

Although I believe that a lot of travel photography is more about framing and few people can really make use of or need a $1500 dollar camera, aurora photography is one of the instances where having an expensive camera is actually necessary. Aurora phenomenon occur on 2 to 10 second timescales in very low light conditions, so to capture a good aurora shot you have to have a very fast lens (F stop 2.8 or less), and a sensor capable of reaching a high ISO rating (3200 or higher) with low noise. Combine a low F-stop with a high ISO and a reasonable exposure length (4 to 25 seconds depending on the brightness of the aurora) and you have your shot. One also has to note that you will begin to notice startrails during exposure of 30 seconds or more, which sets an upper limit on the exposure timing.

To obtain a low-noise image at high ISO settings, you simply have to have a high quality sensor, which means purchasing an expensive camera. It can be useful to check out very detailed explanations of sensor noise on a site like this one or this one. Aurora photography is also one of the instances where having a full-frame camera can really pay off -- even if the number of pixels is the same in a full frame versus cropped sensor camera, the pixels in the full frame will be physically bigger which results in less noise because larger pixels collect more photons per image, reducing photon noise.

Despite the advantage of a full frame camera, they might be too expensive for some budgets because even if a full frame body is only a few hundred dollars more than a cropped sensor body, the lenses will be much more expensive. Fortunately, high-end cropped sensor cameras are still sufficient for aurora photography.

Here are some recommended kits:
Budget < $1000 - 1500
 - Canon Rebel Series with Kit or Zoom Lens (~$500)
 - Tokina 11-16 mm Lens (~$500)

Budget $2000 - $2500
 - Canon 60D or 70D with Kit or Zoom Lens (~$1200)
 - Tokina 11-16 mm Lens (~$500)

Budget > $4000
 - Canon 6D with Kit or Zoom Lens (~$1800)
 - 16 - 35 mm Lens (F 2.8) (~ $2000)

For a low end camera body, a rebel intro DSLR can still take good aurora shots. The Canon 550D that I used for many of my photographs had a surprisingly high ISO performance as a result of it having the same sensor as the Canon 7D. A lot of the additional features that are upgraded for high end cameras like the 7D, or the 5D over the 6D are additional focus points and ultra fast shutter speeds, which are not necessary for aurora photography. Indeed, you will be using manual focus for all aurora / night sky shots.

The Canon 60D and 70D are good high-mid range cameras. They take excellent shots at high ISO. Although I used to not like cameras with a movable screen, they are useful for previewing shots taken when your camera is in a box without having to remove the camera from the box (this is more annoying than it sounds due to the cold temperatures).

The best aurora camera on the market is probably the Canon 6D. This camera has about the same low-light performance as the twice as expensive 5D. It also has a special low-light sensor in the center pixel. It really produces amazing shots and I was fortunate to be able to borrow one often from another winter-over.

In addition to a body, you need an "aurora lens", basically the fastest (lowest F-stop) wide angle lens you can afford.  For cropped sensor cameras, the Tokina 11-16 mm Lens is amazingly sharp and fast for its price. Although I listed wide angle zoom lenses, a prime lens is also fine. Even with a wide angle zoom, you will probably keep it on its widest setting most of the time. A good focal length is 16mm for a full frame and 10 or 11mm for a cropped sensor camera. Metal primes are preferred as they have a bit less change in focal length due to temperature contractions in the cold. Another advantage of canon cameras is that they can use prime lenses from almost any brand with only a cheap physical adapter. So if you can find a good and fast prime lens off of KEH then go for it.

Once you have your wide angle lens, when you get to the pole you should focus it on stars and then use electrical tape to make sure the focus doesn't shift. You can also tape it down to the widest focal length and leave it that way for an entire winter of aurora photography.

The kit and accessories you buy will also depend on if you wish to take timelapse photography or just take stills. For example, the Canon 60D has a battery that lasts 30 minutes in the cold without a camera box, while the Canon 550D only lasted 15minutes (a large difference if you are taking an aurora timelapse).

Accessories:

• In addition to your wide angle lens, make sure you have a zoom lens (up to 200mm) for taking pictures of sunrise/sunset, and if you are lucky a lunar eclipse. 
• Other lenses: A fisheye lens is good for some all sky shots, particularly of corona aurora, and also if you want to install an aurora camera
• Extra batteries: 3-4 should do it.
• Memory cards: Get a few of these, with one really large one (128GB) if you plan to do long timelapses
• Remote shutter: Bringing down a couple of these is a good idea, but you need to modify them with teflon so that the rubber doesn't break in the cold
• Tripod: it seems the carbon tripods to better down here because they are easier to handle in the cold due to their lower heat conduction. The carbon fiber also doesn't contract as much as mental in the cold. A ball mount seems best for getting the best range of motion and is easy to adjust outdoors in the cold. So something like this should work (Dolica also has some good cheap ones), just keep in mind that when you get to pole you will have to take the tripod apart and regrease it with special cold-weather grease that you can find on station.
• External Hard Drive: It's essential to bring one or two external hard drives down for storing backups of your images and backups of your backups (hard drives tend to fail easily in the environment down here)
• Adapters: If you bring a canon camera, consider a Nikon lens adapter for borrowing lenses or to use on old primes you bring down
• Extra camera: Yes! After all that investment in a kit for one camera, you should bring an extra camera body down (a $250 Canon 550D body should be fine). This will serve as a backup in case your primary camera breaks (this winter a Canon 5D MkIII broke a couple months after station closed) and can also be used as a camera for the aurora cam setup. I'd actually bring two extra bodies down, one for the aurora cam and one for putting in outdoor camera boxes. 

    

Camera boxes like the two shown above can be constructed to allow for long timelapses. The one on the top is electrically heated so can last indefinitely, but must be plugged into a power outlet. The box on the bottom uses two Nalgene bottles filled with hot water from the tea spigot in the galley to keep the camera warm for up to two hours. It is easier to frame shots in the boxes if your camera has a flip-out screen. 

You can check out some examples of south pole aurora photography at these links:

• The iceman's blog follows the king of south pole photography's 10th winter and counting. He uses many different canon cameras. He even constructs camera boxes that mount on co-moving platforms to capture timelapses that follow the milky way
• Icecube winterover Ian's blog Ian's blog has some good photos taken with a Canon 6D
• Fellow SPT winterover Nick's blog has good still shots captured with a Nikon D7000
• NOAA Corps winterover Joe's flickr page has good shots captured with a Canon 60D
• And of course my shots are posted on this blog or on my flickr page

Other shots:

• Although I list mostly Canon and they seem preferred down here, you can find an equivalent Nikon for any Canon model. Canon can fit used old primes from other cameras with only a physical adapter, which is nice, but Nikon has a bit better in camera options (to make full use of a Canon camera's options you can always get magiclantern)
• Remember that once station closes you can't get anything new if a component breaks, so better just to bring two of every piece of essential camera equipment. It's probably too expensive to do this with lenses, but there are a couple lenses for the station camera that you can borrow
• I didn't mention software, but there are good programs already down here on common drives, including Lightroom, starstax, hugin, timelapseassembler, etc...
• What not to buy: People were unhappy with low end introductory SLRs such as the Pentax K-x and the Nikon D3200. 
• Finally, our entry into the Antarctic International Film Festival tied for Best Screenplay and was runner up for Best Acting!

Next Week in Pole: NASA blows up the TDRS-5 internet satellite

HAM Radio KC4AAA

A couple weeks ago, we had a HAM radio exam at the South Pole Station. Six of us took the examination to either upgrade or get new HAM licenses. The HAM radio exam is closely regulated by the ARRL. It requires three moderators, and we had to receive special permission from the ARRL to host the exam and set up a special video conference link to allow for more moderators. 

Overall, the following licenses were issued: 4 Technician, 3 General, 3 Extra (some people took multiple tests). This marks the first time in history than and Extra license was granted in antarctica. It was also only the third time in history the ARRL exam was done remotely (the second time at the south pole). There was even an article about it here. 

Because the south pole is so far way from anywhere else in the world, many HAMs around the world try to contact it to add to their list of contacts, so in good propagation there can be a "pile-up" of people waiting to contact the south pole. If you make a contact with the South Pole Station, you are granted a QSL contact card like the one shown below. 

The HAM radio shack is located on the station and also serves an an emergency communications room. We've started making some contacts so far, but reception is still poor because the sun is down. When the sun comes up in a bit over a month, and the couple weeks leading up to sunrise, we will have better reception and be using the equipment more often.

South Pole Station has some high quality radio equipment, including a very expensive Alpha 87A Linear Amplifier, without which we would not be able to contact the outside world (via radio). We have four antenna options: 6 element 20m pointed at the US, 3 element 40m beam pointed at the US, multielement 10-15-20m beam pointed at Europe, and 4 element 17m beam pointed at the US. Most of the time we operate on the 20 or 40 meter beams pointed at the US, and generally reception is better on those wavelengths. 

Other contacts:

• Check out this interesting article on stations around the continent preparing for opening
• Yes, hair cuts are available on station from one of the winter-overs who has skills with scissors
• When aurora are active propagation improves but it is sporadic and fluctuates because of the transient nature of the aurora
• The station pod where the ham shack is located also doubles as the emergency quarters, where people live if the rest of the station manages to blow up / burn down. 

Next Week in Pole: Aliens

The Winter Psych Eval

Many people ask about the psych evaluation required to come to the pole. The best description of the winter psych evaluation is at Big Dead Place. This year, the psych eval was particularly stringent because the 2013 winter had many issues. However, there isn't really any proof that the psych eval helps in any way to eliminate crazies from coming to the pole. In reality, many good people are denied positions for reasons never revealed because the psych eval is kept in a shroud of secrecy (i.e., BS). At any rate, the thing they seem to be screening for the most is alcohol abuse.

Because of our winter's unpleasant experience with the psych eval, we decided to make it the subject of our submission to the annual international antarctic 48 hour film festival competition. For the 48 hour film fest, stations around the continent must produce a ~5 minute film in two days that contains five elements picked by last years winners. Our film's subject was a guide to passing the winter psych eval:


South Pole 48hr Festival Entry (Large) from Jeremy Johnson on Vimeo.


More craziness:

• The five items for this year were: a swing, a swimsuit, a line from the movie Aliens, Footrot (some NZ comic character), and a squealing pig
• Most of the question included in the video are actually on the psych evaluation
• The psych eval is all done out of one office in denver, which gets paid for each evaluation, thus the office has an incentive to fail as many people as possible or ask them to come back for a second evaluation

Next week in pole: Which winter month contains the most violence / mental breakdowns?

The 300 Club

The past week marked a South Pole milestone: the 300 club. When the temperature drops below -100 ˚F, many people get into the sauna which is warmed up to 200 ˚F, and then walk naked to the South Pole, for a temperature difference of 300 ˚F. A better summary can be found here and an interesting article on the tradition can be found here. 

Some winters, the temperature never drops below -100 ˚F and the tradition isn't possible. Over a month past mid-winter, we were beginning to worry. To our relief the temperature did drop and about 15-20 of us participated this year. One polie stood at the pole with a camera and flashlight to guide the way, and the rest of us walked to the pole from the sauna in groups of 2-5.

Everyone's experience varies. For me, the sauna had superheated my body enough that I did not begin to experience discomfort until the walk back.

The path to the pole begins at what we call the Beer Can, the cylinder on one side of the station that also leads to the underground passages to the power plant / warehouse / vehicle facility. The main obstacle to get to the pole is the large drift that develops in front of the Beer Can over the course of the winter. The two NOAA people that work in the ARO building climb this every day.

The drift

Additional degrees:

• Unlike in the Atlantic article, we walked to the geographic south pole, not the ceremonial south pole 
• Fortunately the temperature stayed below -100 for half a day, allowing ample time for everyone to complete the walk, and bottoming out at -104.8
• Walking is better than running, which can cause you to inhale too much cold air and catch a cough
• Generally it only reaches -100 with clear skies and little wind

Next Week in Pole: Snowmobiles!

How to Catch an Aurora

Aurora at the South Pole are a big deal for some, while others are indifferent. It's all to easy to stop caring about aurora after seeing the first few. Nevertheless, those who like to race outside to take photos whenever aurora are active (like myself) have several tools to scan the sky and spread the word. Determining when aurora are active is important because the station is completely boarded up to avoid light pollution, so you can only check for aurora by going outside. Since people tend to avoid the cold as much as possible, some tools for catching aurora and spreading the word are necessary. 

First is the Aurora Channel on the radios everyone carries. Hand-held walkie talkies are supposed to be carried at all times. They contain channels for the emergency response team you are assigned to (such as 'Medical' or 'Fire Team'), work based channels (such as 'Comms' or 'Operations'), an 'All Call' channel for station announcements during emergencies, individual channels for specific people, and the Aurora Channel. The radios can also receive pager alerts, so mine receives an alert when something is wrong with the telescope. For the Aurora Channel, when people see a good aurora they will simply make a call over that channel and alert everyone who opted-in to the channel. 

The second tool that has been up since the start of the season is the MAPO Aurora Cam. This has been up since the start of the winter and is mounted around the MAPO building in the Dark Sector. Because it is just a webcam, the sensitivity is low. It is useful for seeing bright aurora, as seen in the photo. However, it would miss fainter aurora that aren't as nice to the eye but are still worth of being photographed. The photos are updated every 10 seconds or so and output onto the station intranet, and also rotate through the galley scroll. 

The MAPO Aurora Cam

This season a third tool was installed, which grabs the most recent NOAA space weather prediction center plot of the current auroral oval. This is also output to the station intranet / galley scroll. When there is high activity over the south pole, then supposedly there should be good aurora outside. However, auroras at the pole don't seem to correlate that well with the auroral oval, and sometimes photographable aurora are seen even when the oval activity is low. 

The fourth tool was just installed this week, and is the result of a project I've been working on. Because the MAPO Cam had low sensitivity, and couldn't detect fainter aurora, I refitted the station's very old Canon 1D Mark II camera to be used in an unused roof port. The roof windows are located on the mezzanine of the B2 Science Lab, and all but one house scientific instruments and aurora cameras that the winter Aurora Tech keeps in operation. Because no light should be output from the port, I draped a light shield around the port that contains the camera. Because of the age of the Canon 1D Mk II, it had to be linked to a 32-bit Windows XP computer, which uses canon software to remotely control the camera and send the files out. The camera takes a 30 second ISO 1600 exposure every 5 minutes (any faster time seems to overload the poor old camera) and the photos are posted on the station intranet and galley scroll. 

New Aurora Cam Station on the B2 Science Mezzanine

The Canon 1D Mk II looking out a rooftop window

Despite its age, the still shots provide a better picture of what the conditions are outside. In the picture the milky way is visible and a faint aurora can be seen forming on the horizon. Future polies should be able to easily reproduce the setup, although I'd recommended bringing down a better camera specifically for the purpose of aurora detection. 

Sample New Aurora Cam Shot

B2 Science

For further reference, I include a shot above of the B2 Science Lab. The section to the right is the SPT workspace where I work when I'm not at the telescope. To the left of that is the Ice Cube work space, and to the left of that is a large cubicle for the meteorology people. Not shown is an area further to the right where the Lockheed science techs work. This area is on the second floor of the station, allowing access to the roof through the mezzanine. 

Extras:

• Auroras are often spotted by smokers undeterred by the > 11,000 ft altitude and frigid < -70 F temperatures
• A 'Mastrubatorium' sign was jokingly taped to the aurora cam light shroud because polies in general are excessively clever and cannot contain themselves
• This year has only been average overall for auroras, and the sun will be headed into a solar minimum for future seasons
• Because of our position in relation to the auroral oval, the best auroras are between 10 am and 2 pm, with a secondary peak between 10 pm and 2 am. 
• This year has only been average overall for auroras, and the sun will be headed into a solar minimum for future seasons

Next week in Pole: Which direction does water drain at the south pole?

South Pole Recreation

Although the main past-times at the South Pole are alcoholism and Seasonal Affective Disorder, there are other ways polies can occupy themselves over the course of the winter. A recreation schedule is posted on the galley scroll and station intranet so that people can view the events of the upcoming week. I'm actually in charge of updating the schedule. 

The sample schedule above shows some of the ongoing activities and special one-shot events. Over the course of the winter sports like Badminton, Volleyball, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu have survived and are practiced on a regular basis. Early starters such as Soccer, Fencing, and Basketball died off. The gym at the pole is actually quite large, with plenty of space for a variety of sports. In the summer, there are more people around and Dodgeball is common. 

Besides sports, there's been a couple TV nights that have come and gone, such as Mad Men Mondays, Game of Thrones Wednesdays, and Always Sunny in Philadelphia Sundays. Having exhausted those episodes people are now on Tudor Tuesdays. About once a month a "Drive in Movie" event is held, where a projector is set up in the gym, filling the white screen seen behind the basket in the above photo. Chairs and pillows are brought in and people enjoy a big screen movie. 

Our resident German organized viewing of WWI documentaries and films, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Great War, but for those seeking a lighter does of television there are Sunday Morning Cartoons. 

With only 41 winter-overs, finding someone to share in your hobby can be difficult, and I'm very pleased that the station machinist has continued to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with me all winter. Generally to train BJJ at the pole we go off of instructional DVDs that I brought down. There are sufficient mats to make a decent training space. I brought down a couple gis as well but because of the height difference we only train no-gi, although it did come in handy for the obligatory pole shot.

Other events:

• Really, outside of work most people just stay in their rooms and watch movies / TV
• The travelogues are a recent trend to get everyone excited about end of season travel
• Blues Dance didn't last, R.I.P.
• The galley scroll which rotates through pages such as the rec schedule, menu, weather, aurora cam, and gifs, is displayed on TVs visible in the galley (the one seen here is showing the upcoming internet passes)

Next Week in Pole: How many movies / tv shows can a polie get through in a season?

Independence Day

The past week in pole contained a celebration of America's independence. The VMF (Vehicle Maintenance Facility) threw a July 4th party. 

The main attraction was of course food and beer, but some winter-overs put together some special games. 

This included a pinata of King George III and Noodling.

For the unfamiliar, Noodling involves diving into a box of noodles to retrieve prizes. In this case our Noodling host (wearing the King George III crown) hid fish in the noodles, and participants had 30 seconds to retrieve a fish. Different fish allowed one to pick a prize from various boxes. Apparently, the noodles we were using had to be trashed because they were so old that they dissolved in water (something I've never heard of a pasta). In addition, we also had horseshoes. 

All of these games of course, were complimented by plenty of food and beer. 

Of course, not everything about the station is strictly american. There are three foreigners here - a german, canadian, and norwegian. Why only three? In the past, Raytheon had hired international contractors, but every since Lockheed Martin took over, only US citizens have been hired for the contractor positions (which are the majority). If you don't work directly under Lockheed's Antarctica Support Contract, you are considered a Grantee. Most grantees (like myself) work for the individual science instruments and are hired directly by the institutions that operate the science equipment (University of Chicago for the South Pole Telescope, University of Wisconsin-Madison for Ice Cube, and I believe Harvard for the SPUD/Keck telescope). 

More america:

• Don't hesitate to say 'MERica as often as possible in the vicinity of our resident Canadian, he really enjoys it
• No, no fireworks
• Patriotic movies were also shown all week on station, including Top Gun, Beer Fest, Independence Day, Rocky IV, and The Patriot
• Yes, we still have to pay Federal and State taxes while working here - the complexities involved in defining antarctic soil are a mystery to us all

Next Week in Pole: How much better would life be if we could have some pets on station