May, 2010....J. Dana Hrubes...updated May 31, 2010 , 0710 GMT
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SPT and the milky way
South Pole Telescope (SPT) and our Milky Way galaxy

May is the month when we are fully settled into our routine, living and working in the eternal darkness and frigid temperatures. We have had a couple of windstorms, but between them, the skies have been beautiful, filled with auroras and thousands of stars.     SPT bathed in starlight    SPT under colorful aurora     SPT and aurora-1     SPT and aurora-2     aurora over BICEP II telescope     aurora over Dark Sector Lab (DSL)    aurora and BICEP II     very bright aurora over SPT      bright aurora over SPT    colorful aurora     corona aurora over SPT   

I spend most of my waking hours over at the Dark Sector Laboratory and SPT so that is where I take most of my photos, but I caught some aurora on my walk in to the station one day. That is why I always carry a tripod in my backpack.       
aurora over destination alpha at main station       aurora and satellite trace over the main station         

aurora over ICL
A colorful aurora raining down over the Ice Cube Neutrino Laboratory (ICL)
 
More aurora photos:                aurora over ICL      aurora over ICL-2       aurora over DSL      aurora and DSL crane     aurora and DSL steps      
            


milky way, small and large magellanic clouds
  Two of our closest galaxies, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, seen as the two fuzzy spots above the Milky Way galaxy

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), two of our closest galaxies, are gravitationally bound to us and will someday merge with our Milky Way galaxy.  These dwarf irregular galaxies are thought to have previously been barred spiral galaxies that were ripped apart by the tidal forces of our Milky Way galaxy. These galaxies are two of the most distant objects that can be seen with the naked eye and can only be seen from Southern Hemisphere. The LMC is about 157,000 light years away, while the SMC is about 197,000 light years away. The Southern Cross and Alpha and Beta Centauri are seen as stars in the foreground of the Milky Way in the lower third of the photo.

   Large Magellanic Cloud to the left of the Milky Way          SPT and the Dark Sector Lab and the Milky Way      

I have been taking photographs of the newly launched Cryosat II polar orbiting satellite for a satellite engineer in Germany. The mission of this satellite is to measure ice thickness at the Poles.    Cryosat II streak between the Small Magellanic and Large Magellanic Clouds       

Daniel and I had to dock South Pole Telescope this month to troubleshoot and replace a power supply on one of our data readout crates.  One must wear static grounding wristbands when working around some of the static sensitive components in the SPT cabin electronics rack.    bringing power supply up into the the telescope cabin [photo by dlv]     installing the new power supply     checking computer comms connections     last check before undocking the telescope    



Next Month - June: Midwinter Solstice!
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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