Weather: Pure crap. Windy and grey, blowing snow and low cloud shelf. Not good for observing. Temps still relatively warm, -12F with windchill down near -40F.
It was actually sunny earlier in the day, but has since gotten bad. No flights to Pole today, but hopefully the other 3 SPTers in our crew will be arriving in McMurdo shortly which would put them on a flight to Pole Monday (weather/mechanical/crew permitting).
We spent most of today showing Geoff, the new SPT winter-over, around the telescope and the Dark Sector Lab. Since he doesn’t work with SPT on a regular basis, he has never seen the inner workings of the experiment, so we also gave a lightning overview of the cryogenics, detectors and readout – all of which are important to understand during observing and for problem solving if things go wrong.
Brad explaining the drive system to Geoff. This is the main control panel for local control of the telescope.
I did some analysis today in the off-time while Geoff was setting up his computer accounts, etc. I may have to start boring you with my 3G data analyses if things keep running so smoothly.
Marathon:
I got the pictures from Yuya (one of the IceCube winterovers who took pictures during the race). They are all super nice, high resolution photos, so I can’t do them justice by uploading them here but I will upload some downgraded pics here.
Starting line of the 2020 South Pole Marathon… You can see my MD flag hat in the very back… I had thought I would bring up the rear in this race, so I started in the back. Photo Cred: Yuya MakinoOff the starting line — ceremonial pole is always the start/finish of races here at the South Pole. PC: Yuya MakinoAbout 2 minutes into the race… the marathoners were really pacing themselves. I guess I didn’t get the memo. PC: Yuya MakinoRunning past the old IceCube drilling rigs in the back of the berms. We were running with the wind, so it gets pretty warm. It’s important to thermo-regulate so you don’t sweat too much, otherwise it freezes. PC: Yuya MakinoEveryone trying to catch Kendl, the outright winner of the marathon. She would even beat my half marathon time, and go on to win the full marathon with a time of 4:33. PC: Yuya MakinoRunning down the side of the runway… and it was a good thing we didn’t use the actual runway, because a Twin Otter landed while I was down at the end. PC: Yuya MakinoTurn around at the end of the runway. I had gotten a little sweaty, but now I would be running back, into the wind. This is when the pants freeze! PC: Yuya MakinoRunning by the communications domes. Can you spot the interesting feature of this photo?? — You can see my breath. That is because the snowmobile that Yuya (photographer) was driving was parked upwind and the exhaust allowed my breath to condense. PC: Yuya Makino Riding the struggle bus to the finish. Some of the course was not very well groomed, which made it a bit like running in wet sand; slow going and tiring. Luckily it also makes it a little better on the joints, though my IT band was not happy during the last few miles. PC: Yuya Makino The finishing point of the 2020 South Pole (half) Marathon. I was very happy to not be running the full marathon! Photo cred: Yuya Makino
Post-race medals! A very nice touch, thanks to the volunteers and the machinists. Photo Cred: Yuya Makino
There ya have it. All of these photos I reduced the resolution by about 10x to upload them so you’ll have to wait ’till I’m back in the real world to see the full res photos. And some of them are pretty spectacular!
Allen's South Pole Winter-Over 2020 (+) 