It's already February! That means there's only nine days to go until we have to leave. Wow, we still have a lot to do. It was a pretty slow day for me today though, because Doug and Fred were installing the camera up in on the tower all day (with a four hour break in the middle for a scheduled power outage). Colin filled in his trench, and I tried to solve some more of the seemingly endless software issues we are having (no actual progress was made though!). But by the end of the day the camera was all wired up in the back of the telescope and we were one step closer to a working project!

Fred made the comment today that he is glad that the rest of us seem to be acclimatising but he is still having trouble climbing the stairs. I guess the balaclava and ski goggles I've been wearing have been disguising the fact that the stairs are killing me as well! I can walk along the flat ground between the AASTO and the station in about eight minutes now (was fifteen when we first got here!) but when you get to the station you are greeted with four flights of stairs to get up to the galley where we all eat. After 55 stairs I'm usually feeling slightly lightheaded and unfortunately when you open the door at the top the smell of the coming meal greats you and usually turns my stomach for a moment. I can blame the altitude but I don't think I'd appreciate four flights of stairs back in Sydney either!

Michael and Jason and Mark have been in pretty much constant email contact helping us with ideas and solutions to the problems we've been having and how to approach the upcoming season in terms of observing strategy. Hopefully we'll have all this sorted out before we leave. Nine days! I think we're going to have to hustle!

We also got to see some more beautiful ice and sun optical displays, of course the pictures don't do justice to them but I'll include them anyway. The sun inside two concentric rainbows was especially pretty - I'm going to have to play with the brightness a bit when I get home to bring them out a bit more though.

Cheers from 90 degrees south!




- Jessie