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?