April, 2011....J. Dana Hrubes...updated April 30, 2011,  1700 GMT
(CLICK ON UNDERLINED LINKS FOR PHOTOS....CLICK "BACK" ON YOUR BROWSER TO RETURN TO THIS PAGE) Click for Amundsen-Scott, Antarctica Forecast

aurora australis
A crimson and green coronal display of Aurora Australis "raining down"  directly over the South Pole Telescope (SPT)

April is the month when the beautiful night skies first explode into colorful Aurora Australis and bright stars.  We are hoping for a good aurora season since the sun's activity is rising out of an extended solar minimum this year and is becoming more active once again.          another crimson and green corona display     

Here are some photos of the dark sector lab, where the South Pole Telescope is located, and the emerging stars and a satellite or two reflecting the sun which is about 18 degrees below the horizon.    dsl-stars-moonlight     dsl-stars-moonlight-aurora    


full moon
The first moon rise after sunset is a full moon.
The moon is up for two weeks and then down for two weeks at the geographic poles

One day we had some nice aurora with lower altitude red emission.
red aurora australis
Auroral emission from excited oxygen atoms creates green light greater than about 60 miles altitude
Between about 50 and 60 miles altitude red light is emitted from electrons of excited nitrogen atoms

More red aurora photos:    red aurora 1     red aurora 2     mostly green aurora during astronomical twilight    
      
spt
South Pole Telescope backlit by the faint glow near the end of astronomical twilight (sun is 12 to 18 degrees below the horizon)

Another photo of SPT and aurora Australis:    SPT and aurora       At the beginning of the month there was still some orange glow near the end of civil twilight     SPT and civil twilight      

  bicep2-aurora
The Dark Sector Laboratory, where I work on the South Pole Telescope (SPT), and the BICEP-2 telescope back lit by Aurora Australis
   an aurora back-lighting SPT and the Dark Sector Laboratory    

The South Pole Telescope has been operating well this past month as we are conducting wide area galaxy cluster surveys using the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. Numerous technical papers have been published by the SPT team over the past couple of years on the discovery of massive galaxy clusters and the impact they have on the understanding of dark energy as well as on the discovery of other point sources such as dusty star-forming galaxies and refinements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum data at small angular scales. (click on technical paper link below)

Next month - May: Beautiful Night Skies!
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)

BACK TO MY SOUTH POLE 2011 PAGE

BACK TO MY BI-POLAR HOME PAGE