The One That Got Away...

Welcome back:)

There's a photograph that should exist, but doesn't. For months now I've been hoping for the chance to capture it, but never really thought it would be possible. Last Saturday night all the gears of chance aligned, and I found myself, camera at the ready, actually staring at the scene I'd imagined. What a picture it would have made, but despite all efforts it proved completely impossible.

I've wanted to capture the Southern Lights dancing over the silhouette of Scott's Hut. Not just a nice display of auroras, but an explosion of glowing rivers in the sky, streaming sheets of gold and green paving the way to heaven. The black roof-line of the hut separated from the night sky by the glow of McMurdo Station, itself hidden from view.

And damned if that wasn't exactly what I saw. It was so awe-inspiring that the four of us who ventured out that night laughed like little kids, pointed at the sky, and jumped up and down. An engineer who has travelled the world, been nuzzled by wild baby elephants, and climbed some of earth's highest peaks, giggled like a three year old. Another engineer, a seeker who has studied the possiblity of life on other worlds (and participated in Arizona's sealed bio-dome experiments) whispered "wow" between fits of laughter. An X-sailor who has seen his share of whirlpools, dolphins, and leaning towers, took his protective eye-wear off and let his eyeballs freeze, rather than look on through scratched plastic. Our smiles froze to our faces, our camera motors jammed in place, our batteries died from the cold, our fingers stopped working, our feet went numb, and still we stayed. For two hours we stood by the hut, counting shooting stars and marveling at the indescribable. Green sheets at the zenith rose a thousand miles high! Then, as quickly as they came, the ghostly lights faded. A final shooting star cut through a melting band of glowing green. The silent display was ended, gone, as if it had never been.

Pictures? None really. A few faint suggestions, but nothing more. The tripod shook so much from the wind that stars were stretched into squiggles. We had to remove our gloves to use the cameras, and needed to hold flashlights to change settings. It was very difficult (and painful). We hadn't been prepared, didn't know our cameras well enough, and didn't have the right cameras anyway. Earlier in the day, around 3:00 in the afternoon, our station manager Eric took the following picture. The red color comes from ionized oxygen atoms about 200 miles up, the greens and yellows form much lower, about 60 to 90 miles up. This picture does not begin to capture what we saw later that night, but it is a nice aurora. He exposed the shot for 25 seconds, which is why you can see red. To human eyes, this image looked green and yellow. the camera picked up the faint oxygen glow because of the long exposer. Do you see that faint line in the middle of the shot that looks like a scratch? Look carefully. That's a satellite moving across the sky:

(CLICK ON ME TO FIND THE SATELLITE)

My perfect photo isn't the only one that "got away" since my last update. Remember our little lost seal? It disappeared after a two-day storm, and showed up several days later at LDB (Long-Distance-Balloon). It's a NASA project under construction this winter on the sea ice. They're assembling large buildings on skis that can be pulled across the ice by tractors. This will be a new, mobile, balloon launching facility, and will be completed next season. Anyway, the seal has since disappeared, and hopefully found its way back to the sea (without human intervention). I had volunteered to assist in moving the seal, which would have made for some excellent photographs, but it "got away" before we could rescue it.

Just yesterday, something else managed to elude my camera. Two Adelie penguins waddled into town. This is unheard of in the winter, but the little buggers stumbled into MacTown around 8:00 AM. Many people saw them, but I was working outside, three stories up on some scaffolding, and couldn't stop to go hunting penguins that I'm not supposed to approach anyway. Later, I tried to find them (wouldn't you?), but they'd headed back out to the sea. It seems they got separated when they first arrived. The big bulldozers frightened them, and they ran in different directions, then squawked a lot trying to find each other. I hope they got reunited. Adelies aren't able to survive the winter here alone. Most of them swam to New Zealand months ago.

On a side note, my friend Dave, the safety supervisor, got chased by one of the penguins on his way to work. He was walking alone, minding his own business, when it launched itself from behind a snow drift and ran at him flapping and squawking. Some people have all the luck. Here is Eric's picture of that aggressive Adelie. You can tell it's pretty much ready to kick somebody's butt:



To save space, I won't include my own pictures of the penguin tracks I found in the snow later. Like my faint aurora pictures, the penguin tracks are a sad substitute for the real thing. One of my goals here is to see a wild penguin for myself. That hasn't happened yet, but Emperor penguins stay on Ross Island all winter. I hear that they sometimes come into town. With a little luck, there's an Emperor Penguin out there with my name on it.

I should mention another side note, this time concerning the auroras. Taking photographs of auroras is hard enough without the glare of the moon. Having been here for a few months, I've noticed that the moon does not stick around. Shortly before the new moon, when it's just a sliver in the sky, it sets over the mountains. For the next two weeks - THERE IS NO MOON - nada - nope - nothing. Then one night it suddenly shows up as if it never left, and is almost full again. This gives us a nice window for trying to take aurora pictures. But it's also kinda weird, and yet another thing about Antarctica that reminds me I'm not in Kansas anymore. . .

One more auroral side-bar. I wasn't kidding about how cold we got out there. Before frostbite, as your flesh begins to freeze, it turns white and goes numb. This is called "frost-nip". Notice the tip of my nose. See how white it is? That is a good case of frost-nip, on its way to frostbite. My nose peeled later, as if I'd had a sunburn. It's also sensitive when I first go outside. I've got to be careful now, because damaged skin is more susceptible to frostbite:



Just one more picture...

I would assume there are no lighthouses anywhere in Antarctica. That's a safe assumption. Imagine though if there were one here on Ross Island - an island where everything seems to run in reverse. What would it be like? A few days before the sun set for the last time, Mt. Erebus became my antarctic lighthouse. The phenomenon is called the Erebus Shadow, and only occurs once a year when the setting sun moves behind the volcano. For a few short hours, a beam of eerie darkness leapt from the mountain's summit, slowly rotating counterclockwise across our skies. It was surreal and almost impossible to describe, but despite a recent run of bad luck with my camera, the Erebus Shadow DID NOT slip away.

Take care,
Mike

Erebus Shadow looming over NASA's LDB construction site:

UNITED STATES ANTARCTIC PROGRAM

Next post: #11 »