Monday 25th
January
From
Michael Burton.....
This
may be my last journal report from the South Pole! I'm due
to fly out to McM tomorrow (well actually today, but since
I'm on a night schedule that means tomorrow for me!). The
weather's now beautiful and it looks like things are working,
so its fingers crossed for another great season!
Devotees
of the webcam will have seen the great weather we're now having.
Barely -28C and next to no wind, with great blue skies - its
wonderful! Two Twin Otter's arrived last night, from Adventure
Network International, to pick up our French adventurers (at
last!) and also the Dutch paragliders, who'd radioed in to
say they had only 1 days food supply left and please help!
What that really means is that there is likely to be a food
cache about 100 km out from Pole in the McMurdo direction
if anyone feels like making the journey here one day.....
The
Kiwi's, on the other hand, still seem to be struggling on.
I heard today that its actually an official government appointed
program under their Antarctic program, and thus that the Yanks
will pull them out on Hercs if/when they get here. Sounds
like an interesting way to be spending their meagre budget,
but I guess when the PM can make calls to them on the Iridium
phone and get it broadcast nationally, what does it matter
about the cost!
NSF
are apparantly going to have to apply some hard words to ANI
for leaving their clients at Pole so long, after they had
arrived on time!
The
TEG is running again on the AASTO! After the AGO boys had
left Charlie, our cunning winterover, decided to just put
the radiator back on himself, fix up the connectors, and switch
on power again. So far no freon leaks and everything seems
to be working.....
SPIREX,
the 60cm telescope, is back together, and now just awaiting
Abu, its million pixel infrared camera, which is scheduled
for tomorrow when they can get the crane operator to drive
the massive mobile crane over. Measurements of the background
flux from the instrument in the lab were high, but if I have
my calcs right by the time it drops to -60C in the middle
of winter there wont be much emission to worry about from
the instrument, just that from the sky and space beyond. Lets
just hope that Planck got his radiation formula correct!
Then
comes the task of making sure everything is lined up, we can
find stars and track on them. Its another few weeks work,
but there is a hard working team from CARA here for the job.
I've
been sorting out lots of things to do with how to process
the data this year. We're trying to be really clever and automate
most of the process using some software gurus in Rochester
in the US. However, since it is software, this process probably
wont prove to be as easy as it sounds on paper!
We
are being visited by DV's (or Distinguished Visitors). Arriving
tonight, as the only passenger in a Herc, was Karl Erb, the
recently appointed Director of Polar Programs in the NSF.
Tomorrow we have several other heavies as well. So all the
PI's have been madly typing into their laptops summary and
fact sheets to impress the DV's by as they make their whistle
stop tour of the facilities. Those arriving tomorrow only
have 5 hours at Pole, and are due to see everything. Given
that it takes at least a day to acclimatise its going to be
a tough day in the office! I've been given 10 minutes to make
my mark with them! Actually what we really want to do is open
their minds to our next project, SPIRIT, the 2-m telescope
we want to start building at Pole in a couple years, and for
which the chase for funding is now beginning in earnest! So
we all have to be on our best behaviour tomorrow and put on
our best pair of jeans for the occassion.
So
weather permitting, this will be my last message from Pole,
though there may be a few commenting on the delightful food
at McMurdo. Daniel will have to take over the reins for the
rest of the week!
Michael
 
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