A couple indoor panoramas of the highbay. Showing our working area now that Super-TIGER is flying away, and the Side-Scoop of Joy is “stored” on the gondola. […]
Yesterday we installed the Side-Scoop of Joy, now that there’s enough free space in the highbay. This is a large sun shield structure mounted around the telescope; the joy is due to it allowing us to observe desirable regions, which during the Antarctic summer are very close to the sun. Because this makes the mirror much less accessible, some last mirror touch-ups were conducted first. Plus, the mirror and scoop are both shiny. Today has a shiny theme. […]
Yesterday I took a day off. I did almost nothing, and took zero pictures. So, all I have to post are a few random things taken since last time. Happy 2012-12-12! […]
Monday was Super-TIGER’s first roll-out for a launch attempt. Somehow, Monday also managed to be their launch day. When the usual bus arrived at around 8:00, they had already been out for many hours. BLAST-Pol had been dropped of at the dance floor to make way for TIGER to exit our shared highbay. And TIGER was out on the launch pad with the flight train laid out and the balloon ready to open. But there was too much fog to see anything. Once the fog had cleared, inflation was well underway (though it takes a couple hours). Slowly, members of the BLAST-Pol, Super-TIGER, and EBEX teams trickled out to the spectator area. Launches are always exciting, if maybe a little too exciting when it’s your payload on the line. […]
Laura and Barth brought some decorations down with them, and it was decided that yesterday was the correct time to bring them out. Our mezzanine in the highbay is somewhat shinier, lightier, candy-canier, and generally more festive. […]
Yesterday some of us took a tour of the WISSARD test site. Before deploying to drill down to a sub-glacial lake, they’re drilling a test hole in the ice shelf, a little down the road from us. Our guide, Dennis, took us all through the modular and mobile stages of melting, purifying, heating, and pressurizing water to drill a hole through the ice. […]
The last couple days were spent with a lot of the team working together on a last-minute overhaul of our power system. The previous system, where all the solar panels charged all the batteries, which powered all the things, has been split in two. By separating our sensitive electronics, we’ve reduced noise and increased performance. These are the photos I collected while being busy not working, in between stints of being busy working. […]
I’ve been busy over the last few days, so haven’t taken many photos. Here’s a small selection of what’s been happening. We’ve also had a bit of weather: some heavy winds and actual snow. I know you’re thinking, “well, there’s lots of snow in Antarctica”, but mostly it blows around rather than falling from the sky. […]
Hello who ever you are, (no really I have no idea who reads this) So this morning they launched a Path Finder to test if the float winds have set up, unfortunately I wondered outside just after they released it so I didn’t get the actually launch but got to watch it drift up into there sky. There is always something breath taking about watching a balloon go up, well in that I get thing knot in my stomach going “dear god, I’m going to attach years to something like that, and I have as little control over where it floats as I do over that little path finder.” So yeah, um, breath taking. […]
Hello Gental Reader (looker?), So I told Steve I would do the blog post today…. and then I didn’t get all my photos from today uploaded, so I’m going to do an old tristan’s photos round up, and then post another one tomorrow morning after the images make there way off the ice. […]
A couple indoor panoramas of the highbay. Showing our working area now that Super-TIGER is flying away, and the Side-Scoop of Joy is “stored” on the gondola. […]
Yesterday we installed the Side-Scoop of Joy, now that there’s enough free space in the highbay. This is a large sun shield structure mounted around the telescope; the joy is due to it allowing us to observe desirable regions, which during the Antarctic summer are very close to the sun. Because this makes the mirror much less accessible, some last mirror touch-ups were conducted first. Plus, the mirror and scoop are both shiny. Today has a shiny theme. […]
Yesterday I took a day off. I did almost nothing, and took zero pictures. So, all I have to post are a few random things taken since last time. Happy 2012-12-12! […]
Monday was Super-TIGER’s first roll-out for a launch attempt. Somehow, Monday also managed to be their launch day. When the usual bus arrived at around 8:00, they had already been out for many hours. BLAST-Pol had been dropped of at the dance floor to make way for TIGER to exit our shared highbay. And TIGER was out on the launch pad with the flight train laid out and the balloon ready to open. But there was too much fog to see anything. Once the fog had cleared, inflation was well underway (though it takes a couple hours). Slowly, members of the BLAST-Pol, Super-TIGER, and EBEX teams trickled out to the spectator area. Launches are always exciting, if maybe a little too exciting when it’s your payload on the line. […]
Laura and Barth brought some decorations down with them, and it was decided that yesterday was the correct time to bring them out. Our mezzanine in the highbay is somewhat shinier, lightier, candy-canier, and generally more festive. […]
Yesterday some of us took a tour of the 
The last couple days were spent with a lot of the team working together on a last-minute overhaul of our power system. The previous system, where all the solar panels charged all the batteries, which powered all the things, has been split in two. By separating our sensitive electronics, we’ve reduced noise and increased performance. These are the photos I collected while being busy not working, in between stints of being busy working. […]
I’ve been busy over the last few days, so haven’t taken many photos. Here’s a small selection of what’s been happening. We’ve also had a bit of weather: some heavy winds and actual snow. I know you’re thinking, “well, there’s lots of snow in Antarctica”, but mostly it blows around rather than falling from the sky. […]
Hello who ever you are, (no really I have no idea who reads this) So this morning they launched a Path Finder to test if the float winds have set up, unfortunately I wondered outside just after they released it so I didn’t get the actually launch but got to watch it drift up into there sky. There is always something breath taking about watching a balloon go up, well in that I get thing knot in my stomach going “dear god, I’m going to attach years to something like that, and I have as little control over where it floats as I do over that little path finder.” So yeah, um, breath taking. […]
Hello Gental Reader (looker?), So I told Steve I would do the blog post today…. and then I didn’t get all my photos from today uploaded, so I’m going to do an old tristan’s photos round up, and then post another one tomorrow morning after the images make there way off the ice. […]