Moonlit Station (photo by Marc Hellwig)                                             Moonlit Station from Mapo   (photo by Charlie Kaminski)

Well......it is hard to believe that Midwinter Day, June 21st (Winter Solstice) has come and gone already! The time is passing too quickly. I am still enjoying the darkness, but we will start seeing the first glimpses of twilight at the end of August. We have had a very windy late May and June and I am hoping for more calm and colder weather for July and August so I can spend longer periods of time gazing at the heavens without getting frost nipped. We will experience a partial lunar eclipse at 14:00 GMT on July 5th while the moon is full during it's two week appearance.

There have been many beautiful auroras over the past few months. The light show is spectacular since we are located inside and to one side of the auroral oval which is center approximately about the geomagnetic pole, located near the Russia's Vostok Station. Charlie Kaminski, one of the winterovers has taken some nice photos. There is also a link to his website in my link page.   Charlie's photos:   aurora      aurora-1      aurora-2      aurora-3      aurora-4      aurora-5

The medical department was busy training people last week in CPR and the use of the portable defibrillator.      medical training

We had a nice dinner and celebration for midwinter on Saturday, June 23rd and got a e-mail letters from President Bush and many of the international research stations at Antarctica. Volunteers cooked and served a beautiful turkey dinner and we then had a party in the galley with a live band and lots of dancing.    dinner       band-1      band-2    band-3
 

NEXT MONTH..............More Darkness
 

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