Once SPIDER finished, I spent a week at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The BICEP3 telescope deployed this year, and I went down to help integrate electronics for which I am the expert. While there, I made a mandatory visit to the two south poles: the geographic South Pole marker (which is updated annually), and the shiny looking ceremonial pole for photo ops.
Heading to the LC-130
Sleepy travel
Sleep is difficult with the noise
Disembarking at the pole
Landed on the skiway
With solar halo
The elevated station
Station surroundings
Seen from the observation deck
View of the Dark Sector
Where the telescopes are located
South Pole Telescope
Head on view of the 10m dish
Flagged trail offshoot
To the Ice Cube experiment's building (?)
The MAPO building
Keck telescope is inside the ground-shield on the right side
Dark Sector Lab
Home to SPT (left) and BICEP (in ground shield on top right)
DSL main building
BICEP3 mount
Interesting panel
For keeping the window dry with nitrogen
Electronics rack
I work on the box in the lower left
Huge chopper wheel
BICEP3 telescope
With some bright daylight leaking in
Walking back to the station
Across the skiway
Walking to the pole
Geographic South Pole
The 2015 marker
Zeesh, Jamie, and Walt
Came out to the pole with me
The pole and I
At the ceremonial south pole
Zeesh runs out of the shot
With the pole and the station
South pole self portrait
Spherical self portrait
LC-130 art
On the plane that took me back to Christchurch
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