<\/a>Natalie operates the crane <\/div>
Yesterday she was also given her official NASA rigger\/crane operator certification card. This is a big deal<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Mega group action shot <\/div>
Rolling out to the front porch<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Max. Pwr <\/div>
MAX POWER. Would be a great spy name. (Also, 67A battery charging current)<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Cookie monster's reflected friends <\/div>
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<\/a>Science happens here <\/div>
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<\/a>Team Rotate <\/div>
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<\/a>Team Rotate in action <\/div>
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<\/a>More of team rotate in action <\/div>
And making sure not to run over the power cable<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Pointing at the sun <\/div>
A rare and usually avoided occurrence. The telescope opening is covered to prevent explosion<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Igloo <\/div>
Because the outside team can spend a lot of time waiting, we built an "igloo"<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Tyr prepares to enter the igloo <\/div>
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<\/a>And 3\/4 of him fits. <\/div>
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<\/a>Enzo points out Canopus <\/div>
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<\/a>Canopus on both cameras <\/div>
This was part of the purpose of team rotate: moving the telescope to point at a star bright enough to be seen by the star cameras during the Antarctic day<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>BLAST comes inside <\/div>
With scenic backdrop<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Scott Base <\/div>
Start of the pressure ridges tour. Painted kiwi green for the New Zealanders that reside there<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Barth was on the tour with me <\/div>
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<\/a>Cool ice formation <\/div>
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<\/a>The group <\/div>
This blurry shot is the best one I have of the full seven person group, including other folks from LDB<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Barth catches up <\/div>
After stopping for some photographs<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Anne <\/div>
Was our guide<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Seal <\/div>
Lying in the "warmth" on the surface<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Pressure ridge <\/div>
Uplifted ice, with sea water, and mountains in the background<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>![\"And](\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8349\/8233166909_1e96bd030f_n.jpg\" "\\"And")
Many of us spent a lot of yesterday outside. That’s because we were out on the dance floor again, and had to move BLAST around for some tests. We had to point at a star, and adjust the pointing to track it as the sky rotates. In the afternoon, Team Rotate really got into action as we did some 360 degree scans to calibrate the magnetometer (a fancy compass). Because this job can involve a lot of waiting around, some of us spent the time constructing a sort of igloo. In the evening, Barth and I headed out to the pressure ridges for a tour. This is an area near Scott Base where the sea ice collides with itself (caused by interaction with the nearby land and permanent ice) to create some pretty dramatic formations. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6009"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6009"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6012,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6009\/revisions\/6012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}