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My have things changed since my last post. It's just about dark now, though when I went for a ski yesterday there was a lovely orange glow still on the horizon, while on the opposite side of the sky the full moon presided, the light from the old sun and the new moon competed for what was going to give off the most shadow.
No more pictures from my bedroom window-- all windows are now covered with cardboard to minimize the amount of light from the station leaking outside... there are cameras on the roof of the station that pick up auroras and are very sensitive from any light that might escape from the station.
We had our sunset dinner to celebrate the coming darkness-- a lovely event with spectacular food. The greenhouse provided some fresh flowers and greens for centerpieces as well as a yummy salad for dinner.
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| On a little walk about about a week or so ago... nice sunset light, shadows, pink tones... |
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| Sastrugi-- the wind blows and makes ripples, humps, ridges, valleys in the snow... reminds me of blowing sand dunes and sedimentary rock formation... can get some really neat shapes and etchings. |
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| Attempt to document myself, not just what I'm interested in taking pictures of, at the South Pole. |
But here are a few pictures that folks have taken over the last couple of weeks. It's been a beautiful time-- we didn't see the actual sunset, but about a week after the sun went below the horizon the weather cleared and what we did see was sunlight refracted through the Earth's atmosphere that was then reflected off of clouds near the horizon, and it looked like the sun-- an intense globular area of fire red peeking out at the horizon between the clouds-- but it was just intense reflection off of the clouds of the refracted light. The sun was more than three degrees below the horizon at the time... some of the "old timers" say that's the latest they'd ever seen sunlight like that after the true sunset. We even saw some green and blue light along with all the reds and oranges in the refraction spectrum. Pretty cool. OK then, on to the pictures:
First, Robert's shots.
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| A chillly station... |
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| One of the science outbuildings-- the Dark Sector Lab with the 10 meter South Pole Telescope that looks at light/heat signals from the earliest origins of the universe to help explain how the universe is structured. |
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| More sastrugi... not so easy to walk over, nicer with skis but you still have to watch your tips! Science outbuildings in the background. |
