Here is the panorama I promised. To my chagrin, I have discovered that using a very wide angle lens (10mm focal length) actually makes life more difficult when it comes to panoramas, so there are a couple of small glitches, but the image is still lovely. This is a view of almost 360°; the base is roughly due north and the sun due west. You’ll need to click on the image to see the full effect. Warning – large image may load slowly.
A beautiful day: -16°C and almost no wind. At one stage, while wrestling a trapped skidoo, I stripped to short sleeves. Clear blue skies above and a wonderful freshness to the clear air… it truly felt like spring. Everyone was outdoors working on different things and enjoying the break in the weather. I headed down to the winter depot, to photograph the various containers and sleds for documentation. Those that have a large wind profile cause local wind acceleration which creates a small wind-scoop over time, such as this one:
Later in the day I assisted our radio operator and electronic engineer, Gerhard, with making an inspection preliminary to some repairs on the radio mast in front of the base. The mast supports the big HF radio antenna as well as a VHF whip on top, and from my lofty perch I had a beautiful panoramic view. Beautiful panorama to follow, but here is a sample:
For fun, here is a more abstract picture that I call ‘Mast Geometry’:
(Yes, Mum, I was tied in.)
Time flies by… especially in Antarctica, and especially when producing newsletters! Our latest is now available for download from the newsletters page, or click the link below to view. This one has a great article by Sanki about katabatic winds and how we recorded a wind gust of 222 km/h, some of the best aurora photos we’ve ever taken at SANAE IV, and plenty of other good fun and interesting content. Enjoy!