Sunday, January 6, 2013

Day 68-74 recap, December 31, 2012 - January 6, 2013 -- T + 8 days

EBEX has now been up in the air for a little over a week and we've settled into a routine. We've been working 24 hour shifts to monitor the payload and deal with any issues that crop up. I'm working the 4PM-to-midnight shift.

Over the course of the past week I haven't had time to do much besides monitor the experiment as I shifted my schedule later. I basically completely missed the McMurdo New Year's celebration, Icestock, because I was dead tired after launch operations and the post-launch lack of sleep. I hear it was pretty great, though, with 9 (!) bands and a chili cookoff.

Today (the 6th) I heard news of some penguins off of Hut Point, so I went down with my camera and managed to catch a couple of them hanging out. Sadly, the lighting was kind of crappy (strong backlight from the sun), but there are some decent shots in there.

We're currently projecting that the cryogens will run out around ~Wednesday so we're trying to get as much data out of the experiment as possible before then. However, the balloon is currently on the complete opposite side of the continent from us so it will be a while before we terminate -- CSBF is projecting a termination date of some time around January 17th to allow time for the balloon to come back around near McMurdo to make recovery efforts easier.

Pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104253244018605213307/EBEXInAntarctica2012123020130106

3 comments:

  1. Those penguin look small and black. did you try spot metering? anyway, good to know you are doing well and working hard.

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    Replies
    1. I didn't try spot metering. Should have. It also would have helped to have a longer focal length -- I should have bought the Canon 100-400mm instead of the 70-200!

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