Captain's Web Log(9) - 30 April 2016 - Does the South Pole Station observe International Jazz Day?

Why yes, yes we do.

The South Pole Station Jazz Band (including yours truly on violin) filmed our rendition of Summertime in (only slightly ironic) honor of the occasion. You can check it out here: (youtube)
And the International Jazz Day official website here: jazzday.com

For the record, we did a take with all of our extreme cold weather gear on, but sadly none of that footage made the final cut.


Also, I've been having more fun playing around with timelapse videos, so here's another pair I made a couple days ago. Fun bonus game: play spot the satellites (sorry folks, still with limited browser compatibility because ffmpeg doesn't like me... definitely works in Chrome)



In this one the telescope is doing the last bit of a regular scan and then starting some calibration observations. The actual elapsed time is about 4 minutes.





In this one, the telescope is doing some calibrations. It's sped up more, so you can see the stars moving (actual elapsed time about 20 minutes).


Current conditions

Temperature: -73F/-59C
Windchill: -107F/-77C
Wind: 8.5 kts Grid 67
Barometer: 676.2 mb (10,772 ft/3,283m)
Sun elevation below the horizon: 15 degrees (We are now in astronomical twilight, and holy cow was it dark outside today with the moon hiding behind the clouds)

And just for Lena: The moon is currently 10 degrees above the horizon and setting.