A Couple of Pictures

A view SW to Liotard with some nice lenticular altocumulus clouds above. These clouds are indicators of very high winds and often foreshadow dodgy weather! notice the edge of the sea-ice - our hopes of getting out on it have been shattered and have blown away with the ice towards the south. a few days ago there was total sea-ice cover (fast ice is the name given when its attached to the land), and the GAs were walking around on it, drilling holes and measuring it's thickness. it still remains to the north, but all the drilling process have to start again now, and it doesn't look too hopeful for getting sea-ice travel on my winter trip. never mind, i'm here for another year...!



One of my jobs is to make sure the automatic weather stations that we run keep running and getting and storing numbers. But most of them are 1 or 2 twin otter flights away from here, and we service them in the summer season. this one is just a few kms from rothera so i visit it each week.

it's been a slow blog and photo week as you can probably tell... have had some pretty poor weather and i haven't been out too much. hoping that will change soon as the sun slowly increases it's influence on the day...

Return of the Sun!

And our shadows were cast wherever we stood... Although we had to walk up a hill to see it, we were granted an audience with the Sun, at about 2 o'clock - the first glimpse for what seems like a long time. It came beaming at us through the gap between Stork Middle and Stork North, silhouetting Orca, and staying visible for about 20 mins. here's a few pictures -



The Sun poking it's way through a mountain gap, the skiidoo tracks of other Sun-hunters cheese-wiring the plateau.



Tris and Pete looking North from a peak on reptile. Looking directly at the sun!



Tris enjoying a bit of UV despite the cold. He'd just had his HF radio set out and we were listening to a chap from France - unfortunately Tris's little 5 watt set wasn't powerful enough to respond. very nice day out. rob

Sonic mattress in E-minor

a pic of Dickie (left) and Mark on the edge of the rapidly freezing sea. It was -15 that day and fairly calm, good conditions for sea ice formation. Today it's colder still... so, we're having a "beach party" tonight! just another excuse to drink cocktails and wear something slightly different, all in the name of fun. pictures from this one may be classified... and,

a bit of guitar picking with effects and a bit of fake slide guitar, made by sliding a microphone shaft up and down the fretboard. It was mostly improvised so the timing is not that solid, but i think it sounds quite nice...

sand - www.robertwebster.org/Tunes/Sand.mp3

(right click and save as...)

that's all for now, rob

More Nacreous Sky Delights...

The best yet nacreal (not sure if thats correct...) display. couldn't resist taking roughly 1000 photos. here are a few of the juiciest:

Mother of Pearl

A few pics of the same thing. But i think you'll agree that the thing is pretty stunning - the closest we get (still hoping this isn't always true) to the beauty of the aurora, these nacreous clouds are pretty high up, above most of the weather, in the stratosphere. these are the best ones i've seen so far.

Simple post of complex beauty

Beautiful sunrise today, with a perfect calm sea.



Last week, another perfect sky, the silhouette of the met tower weather station and stevenson screen containing "A Thermometer". Looking north north east.



The partial moon rising from behind the adelaide island mountains.