Commuting to work in a snowmobile-pulled sled.
The other commute: walking to work.
The new South Pole Station (where I live).
Spontaneous gaiety outside the Dark Sector Laboratory.
Walking home from work.
Walking home from work.
Jeff and Steve making theadolite measurements. Joaquin backseat driving.
Jeff hard at work.
Joaquin.
An igloo behind the telescope.
Joaquin and our monstrous shuttle van.
The first four panels are placed (only 214 to go).
On a particularly cloudy day, Joaquin discovered a sun spot (!), and we were all able to confirm it. We could see the small black dot with our naked eyes (plus UV-blocking goggles, which were also used to filter this photo). Unfortunately, you can't see the sunspot in any of my photos.
Here Joaquin shows ironworker Kate the sunspot.
The fun-loving ironworker crew, hard at work assembling the telescope.
Half of the lower boom of the telescope is installed.
Fun in the snow.
It begins to look like a telescope.
Jeff running in the snow, right before an air-drop deliverd tons of dried food. To be fair, Jeff was not running from the falling food but toward a better place to photograph the event.
Jeff and Steve carefully placing gap-fillers. These are little copper strips that go between the panels to fill in the gaps of the surface.
Our leader, Steve Padin. [photo credit Bruce Staeheli]
There is a "skua shack" from which you can take other people's left-behind clothing. Joaquin's fashion-aware eye spotted this jewel of a jumpsuit.
A sundog lights up the almost finished telescope mount.
We've had lots of visitors at the South Pole. Here are the tents of four Brits and around 15 Indians who sledded to the South Pole.
The finished reflector is moved outdoors. Here Peter Huntlet and Tim Hughes take photos of the reflector in order to measure its surface (a technique known as photogrammetry).
Everyone else here is growing a beard. Not only am I incapable of growing one, but I don't really want to.