2016-17 Summer Photos - Science, satellites...

solar telescope
Stuart Jefferies returned to Pole with his solar telescope. It was set up west of the station in the dark sector (SS).
 the solar telescope close up


A closeup of the instrument box. The two instruments would log high resolution images of the Sun every 5 seconds at two different heights in its atmosphere (SS).

Dr. Jefferies, from Georgia State University, has been to Pole several times--the first was in 1987-88 with Marty Pomerantz. His project this season was to measure, characterize, and study internal gravity waves present in the Sun's atmosphere, in an effort to map the structure and dynamics of the solar atmosphere. This is similar to the project which brought him to Pole in 2007-08. The instrument looks to be the same or similar, but the site this year is closer to the station. Here is the Georgia State press release describing the 2016-17 project...and also, here is Dr. Jefferies' web page depicting and describing the 2016-17 project. It includes an interesting description of that Hammerschlag (picket) fence surrounding the instrument. Similar fences have been used for decades at Pole to reduce wind turbulence on the telescope without producing a stagnant air mass that would induce turbulence above the telescope.

control vault located under the surface instruments


The other side of the installation, showing the buried control vault below the instruments. Two two-person teams would each cover 12-hour shifts in the vault (which I've been told is the SMURF hut) (SS).
view of the station from the solar telescope site
A view of the station from the solar telescope site, giving some idea of where it was located (SS).
removing berm signs, with the radome in the background
The main focus of this photo is the removal of berm signs from where a
good part of the berm had been cleared...to be sorted and repacked for
storage, packed for retrograde, or put into waste triwalls. In the background
is the radome for the 4-meter SPTR-2 antenna. Out of view is the first phase
of an equipment upgrade--a new ground station shelter erected near the RF
building--along with structural materials to support it--for the 9-meter dish
that used to be called the GOES-MARISAT antenna before both of those
satellites went away. To be completed in 2017-18 (SS).

waste and retrograde cargo lined up
In the background, a lineup of waste and retrograde triwalls, ready to go
out on the early flights in 2017-18 which would otherwise leave empty (SS).
blocks cut from the walls of the ice tunnels


20-30 feet below the above photo, another summer project was to shave blocks from the walls of the slowly-compressing ice tunnels. One sled load of cut blocks is seen here (KS).
sled full of cut snow blocks


Rather than the laborious task of hauling all of these blocks out to the surface, they were stashed in many of the unused future branch tunnels, blocking off access to many of those shrines (SS).

Credits for this page...SS is Sheryl Seagraves and KS is South Pole Telescope team member Kyle Story.

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