August, 2010....J. Dana Hrubes...updated August 31, 2010 , 2300 GMT
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spt-aurora
Aurora Australis "rains" down over South Pole Telescope (SPT)

August is the last full month of the Austral winter without the sun and the last glimpse of the beautiful skies full of stars and aurora Australis. It is also the month when Polies start to think about sunrise and all of the digging out, cleaning up and other work necessary to get the station ready for opening in late October. The unusually long and heavy storms this winter have left buildings covered in and surrounded by mountains of snow and ice. As twilight starts to appear in early September we will be able to see the results of the winter storms and finally get to find out what we were tripping and falling over all winter.

Last glimpse of aurora Australis and stars for the 2010 winter.
     aurora over SPT     aurora reflecting off 10 meter dish    aurora silhouetting SPT   

The planets venus, Mars and Jupiter all rose above the horizon in August:    
aurora and rising Venus      dark sector lab and aurora over rising Jupiter

     Venus with Mars directly underneath below SPT        Venus (brightest) and Mars just rising above the horizon    Venus and Mars 10 days later   

ICL aurora venus
Colorful aurora Australis dances above the Ice Cube Neutrino Laboratory while Venus rises to the left
 
 The Milky Way:      SPT and our milky way galaxy     SPT stars    

The constellation Scorpius is just above and to the left ot SPT:   SPT scorpius and the milky way     SPT and scorpius   

Working on the telescope at -92 F:   telescope maintenance    
            
spt maintenance
  Climbing out of the control room roof hatch to perform regular maintenance on South Pole Telescope

Next Month - September: Sunrise on the 21st!

Recent South Pole Telescope Technical Papers  

A Real-Time Photo of South Pole Station as Seen from the ARO Building (live when satellite is up)
A Comprehensive South Pole Web Site by Bill Spindler
Winterover Web Pages (Bill Spindler's List)

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