A while ago (the 10th of January) I finally left for pole, after being delayed an extra weekend in McMurdo. I flew in an LC-130 (C-130 = Hercules, L = with skis!). During the flight, I spent a while crowded around the windows, with people taking pictures of the Transantarctic Mountains.
Upon arrival, I spent a little while unpacking and coming to terms with the realization that I was at the southern end of the world (!). They recommend people take it easy upon arrival, to acclimatize to the low pressure. But, my urge to explore won out. After doing a lap of the station, I headed over to the “Dark Sector”, where the telescopes live.
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- LC-130, still refueling
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- Turboprop + military aircraft = LOUD!
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- Boarding
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- My view: bags in the middle, and sleepers across
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- Exposed controls, etc. Kind of expected
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- View along the plane. With bags strapped in the middle, passengers in jump seats, and cargo in the back
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- After a little less than an hour, mountains become visible beneath
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- Mountains
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- Jump/cargo door
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- The end of the ice shelf, to the rear
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- More Mountains
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- Mountains and propeller
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- Still more mountains
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- Mountain and Sky
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- Many more mountains
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- More…
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- And more…
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- And more
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- Finally, the plateau begins, with only the very tips of mountains penetrating the deep snow
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- Leaving the skiway, at the south pole!
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- My first view of the station (the geodesic dome was demolished last season)
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- My greeting party: the lunch-going Keck team. Don wears top hat and wool coat
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- While exploring, I enter the Beer Can
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- It is a dark, cold, fuel-smelling place
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- Cargo, stored near the station
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- The Dark Sector, off in the distance
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- And then less distant (thanks to walking)
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- MAPO, the building that houses Keck
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- Prominent on the near side is the ground screen structure
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- Inside, Grant gives me a tour of the telescope
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- One of the motors, and the cable/vacuum tube feedthrough
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- The BLASTBus crate in a temporary configuration. Upgrading this is my primary job
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- Pulse tube cryo cooler
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- Power supply (for MCEs)
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- Tubes
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- Front plate
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- Grating, beneath the upper ladder
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- Upper ladder, with azimuth feedthrough surrounding
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- Focal plane, with very much non-transparent cover (to be removed, eventually)
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- Bottom of the “spittoon” of magnetic shielding
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- Fridge, houskeeping, etc
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- Fridge again, but visible this time
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- Standoff between vacuum vessel and the cold parts
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- The whole top, for more context
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- Another pulse tube
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- Between layers: kevlar, carbon fiber, and superinsulation
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- Empty vessel, for the third receiver (not the one on the mount, or the one under assembly)
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- The ground screen as seem from the roof. I couldn’t go in, because people were doing noise tests at the time
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- The roof. With crane, and mast, and things
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- The other (now abandoned) ground screen attached to MAPO
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- A test bench. Containing an MCE, soon to also have BLASTBus stuff
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- Big, bold cryostat labels
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- The Rack
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- Jack. The Shining is understandably popular amongst winter-overs
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- Telescope MUST NOT freeze
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- Back in my room (aka berthing)
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- The rest of my tiny (but private) berthing. Tried to stitch a pano of this, but it will still take lots of tweaking
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