Aurora #1

2009 Winter-Over Crew - South Pole, Antarctica

I was in charge of putting together the station winter-over crew photo for 2009.  This was one of my favorites because I really nailed the exposure with the right number of headlamps and flashlights reflecting off the snow covered station.  That's me in the bottom left corner.

The Moon and Aurora above the South Pole Stations.

  The Moon, aurora and stations from my work out at ARO.  The Atmospheric Research Observatory is located a quarter mile out in the "Clean Air Sector." 

Aurora above the Old Dome Station during its last winter before demolition.

I still got to see some pretty impressive aurora even though we were near the minimum of the solar cycle in 2009. One of my favorite photographic targets was that of the Old Dome Station.  The geodesic dome housed our frozen food storage for the year.  Every two weeks a group of volunteers would head out in to the frozen aisles and gather the request from our amazing chefs.

Aurora and the Milky Way above the Atmospheric Research Observatory

 I really enjoyed working at the Atmospheric Research Observatory.  With it placed a quarter mile away from the station I had plenty of time for my eyes to dark-adapt for aurora and star gazing.

Meteor and Aurora above MAPO and the South Pole Telescope.

One weekend I decided to hike out to the South Pole Telescope in order to get some photos during a calibration period when the telescope remains motionless.  On the way out to the telescope I decided to pause for one photo of the MAPO building and got lucky with a meteor streaking through the Milky Way.

 Aurora above a Scott Tent and the South Pole.

  I never actually ended up doing it, but a half dozen of the crew ended up spending a night camping out in the Scott Tent set up next to the South Pole marker while it was -80F.