Vulcan South: South Pole Planet Search |
Saturday, February 12, 2005
After two days of wind there are already really big drifts starting to form. We've lost another step into the AASTO. It must be very impressive at the end of the winter. The three evening flights were all cancelled today because of the weather. Two of the planes flew all the way here from McMurdo and circled around for awhile hoping for a clearing in the weather. It didn't come, so they flew back to McMurdo, 3 hours away! The third turned back sooner. Again today, I thought I had fixed the camera problems. After talking with our Roper rep. on the iridium phone, I brought the controller down off of the tower to test some more things. He had suggested that it may be overheating, explaining why it would work for awhile, then quit. It sounds ridiculous to have things over heat at the South Pole, but it is a real problem. The air is thin and very dry, so computers and things that are kept indoors, or in warm boxes outdoors, can't cool themselves as well as they do at sea level. Sure enough, when I looked at the camera controller, I noticed that one of its fans was not running. I figured that should be easy to fix. I set out to scour the entire South Pole for an appropriate replacement and even managed to deputize a couple of people. The exact replacement didn't turn up, but I did manage to find three potentials, one of which was the same size and could be made to work. A bit of soldering (with our brand new soldering iron) and it was installed. I took the repaired controller back up the tower (still in strong winds) and installed it in the EES. When I turned it on it had a happy green light. I quickly ran down and took a couple of pictures to be sure it was working. Again I went off to dinner happy, but this time a bit more skeptical. As I suspected, when I came back after dinner, the controller was again in its error mode with that hateful red light. Tomorrow.... Take the camera out of the telescope? I'm not looking forward to trying that on my last day here, in this terrible wind. cheers, Doug Friday, February 11, 2005
After lunch I called Kevin on the iridium phone. He had talked with Roper, the camera maker, and had gotten several new things to try out. I set out up the tower with renewed enthusiasm, bundled up completely from head to toe to keep out the wind. The first test was to start the camera when it was disconnected from the computer. Amazingly, it worked. I unplugged both ends of the camera-to-computer cable and checked them out. A couple of pins were slightly bent on one end, so I straightened them and plugged it back in. When I started the camera, it worked again. I was very excited and ran down to test it out. I took a short exposure of the sky and there was light! I quickly went up the tower, took off the lens cover and pointed the telescope at the nearby Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO). After fiddling around with the focus and exposure time for a few minutes, I had a picture of the ARO building. It was a bad one, but you could definitely see it was there. I spent a few more hours trying to get a better focus, then went off to dinner to celebrate my success. I was very happy and told everyone it was finally working. Before going to sleep, however, I made the mistake of checking on the system from my room. When I looked at the CCD camera software, it was reporting errors again. I hadn't fixed it after all. Not a happy way to go to sleep. cheers, Doug Thursday, February 10, 2005
My urgent message to Roper Scientific, our CCD camera manufacturer, got a response early this morning, so I had several things to try with the camera and its controller. Both of these items are on the tower, the controller in the external equipment shelter, a heated box, and the camera inside the telescope, a heated can with glass at one end. The first thing to try was to check some diagnostic LEDs inside the controller. This is made slightly more complicated because the box is teetering over the edge of the tower and its quite cramped inside. The controller is tucked underneath several other things with cables winding everywhere. I managed to get it out, put it in a bag and lower it to the ground without damage. Back in the AASTO, I checked out the LEDs (all normal), then swapped one of the electronics boards with a spare we brought down. Next, I had to hoist the controller back up the tower and plug in the cables to the camera to test it. I left its cover off so I could see the LEDs and when I turned it on, the all lit up (that's good) and the controller gave a green (for go!) status light. I packed everything back in it's place in the box and sealed it up so that it could warm up again. Next, back down to the AASTO to see if I could take a picture. When I tried, the software was reporting the same problems I'd seen yesterday, even with the new electronics board. So, back up the tower to unplug and re-plug all the cables and reboot the controller. After several tries it came up green again. Back down to take a picture. No luck. Back up again to check the cables at the camera, which involves taking the back of the telescope off. Luckily, Dana had come out to help, and with the new easy-off wing nuts that Fred installed, we had the back off, cables checked, and back sealed again in only about 30 minutes. We got the controller to show green again, but still had no luck taking images. I sent another urgent message to Roper with the results of my testing and hopefully will have more things to try tomorrow. I did manage to accomplish one thing: I took off the window cover and checked that the shutter is in fact working. Now, if only we could get the camera working! There was a fuel leak in the Elevated Station today, just outside the hall from my room. It smells pretty bad and makes being in my room not so pleasant, but many people have been working on it all day, so I'm sure it'll be fixed soon. I can always go sleep on one of the bunks in the AASTO if it gets too bad. cheers, Doug Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Most of the team headed north today. Fred, Jessie, and Colin left South Pole Station at 11am to head to McMurdo and then on to Christchurch. The flight was the first of the big exodus flights before winter, taking around 40 people. There were a lot of people out to say goodbye to people they'd lived and worked with for weeks or months. I was sorry to see them go, and as their plane took off I realized that I'd been abandoned at the South Pole! Watching their plane fly away, I headed out to the AASTO to get to work and take my mind off of my desperate situation. The AASTO is so lonely. The sound of the driving wind claws at my soul. Fortunately, there's probably enough food, the ice cream machine still works, and I only have to survive until Monday, when my flight leaves. Still, it is a little disconcerting... I did manage to get a lot accomplished today. I installed our newly arrived disk drives, though we'll keep them turned off until winter to hopefully prolong their lives. I also conducted some diagnostic tests on the camera, getting very confusing results. The camera controller works fine some times, then it will work intermittently, then not at all. I recorded the errors it was reporting to send to the manufacturer in hopes they can help us figure out what is going wrong. We now need software and hardware support from them to get this thing going. Other than the camera, most of our equipment is working now. I tested the focus motor, which was able to move the camera around reliably and repeatedly. We also have most of the software working again after the "upgrade." Tonight was Superbowl Wednesday here, but because there was no pig (there were wings) there wasn't a big turnout. I watched a little, but couldn't get enthusiastic since the Steelers weren't playing. cheers, Doug Tuesday, February 08, 2005
After breakfast, Colin and I headed out to the AASTO to test out the Gmount in azimuth-only mode and to focus the camera. Testing the Gmount is easy. Colin just told it to track the Sun, which it did, with exquisite accuracy -at least as measured by Colin's add-on sundial. Focusing the camera was a different matter. First we had to get the focus motor working. I'd looked at it a bit yesterday, but couldn't get it to talk to the computer. After sniffing around for awhile, I realized that I'd plugged it into the wrong port on the computer (it's the altitude). Once the computer knew to look at the other port, it was happy to talk to the motor. The next step in focusing is getting the camera to take pictures. Unfortunately, we haven't been as successful at this step yet. Around 10am the station science coordinator called to tell us we had three choices for when we could leave the South Pole: (1) tomorrow morning on a straight-through flight to Christchurch, (2) fly to McMurdo on the 11th, as planned, but then wait there until the 14th for a flight to Christchurch, or (3) leave the Pole on the 14th to fly on a straight-through to Christchurch. He wanted an answer before lunch. Fred and Jessie were back at their respective homes resting and recuperating, so Colin and I set out to find them. After a discussion at lunch, we decided that no one wanted option 2 (three nights and days in McMurdo) and that it didn't make sense for everyone to stay until the 14th as we didn't have that much left to do. Since there are still some things that need to be done if we're going to get data this year, I'm staying until the 14th. Hopefully, with Dana's help, I can put everything in order before leaving. I'll get back to the US on the 15th, two days late (one of them Valentine's, sorry Jean). With their departure moved up, Fred, Jessie, and Colin had to pack so that they could get weighed and their checked baggage could be stuck on a pallet for shipment to Christchurch. We did all manage to get out to the AASTO and take some team photos with the newly erected flags of Australian and the United States. We also continued to try to get the camera to take images. There is a problem with the version of our camera control software, but by using an older version we could still take pictures. However, the camera shutter didn't seem to be working, so Colin braved the tower to make some measurements with oscilloscope and voltmeter. After what seemed like hours (to Colin especially), during which the computer kept crashing, we realized that not only wasn't the shutter opening, but the camera was no longer working. I went up the tower while Colin was thawing and found that the camera controller had a dreaded red light of death. The red light was what tipped us off that the camera was broken last winter. I reset the camera controller, turned it off and on, reset it again, and still the status light remained red. Very disappointed, I went and told everyone in the AASTO. As it was nearly time for the others to get weighed, we decided to head back to the station and discuss what to do there. Before going, I climbed the tower again to plug a cable into the controller that would let us diagnose it's problem. When I turned it on this time, the light shone green! Not wanting to push our luck, we left it and will check in again later to see what's really going on. Today was supposed to be Super Bowl day at the South Pole. It's a tradition that the game is taped and flown in Tuesday morning. The head chef roasted a whole pig and there was to be a Super Bowl party in the Galley, while everyone (who cared) watched the game. There is an unwritten prohibition about saying who won if you happened to see the results on the internet, or hear the from someone. Well, come 7:00pm there was a delicious roast pig, but no game tape. There had been a mix-up and the tape didn't get on the first flight of the day, but on the last, which just arrived at about 10pm. They'll try again tomorrow, but with no pig. Wish us luck! -Doug Monday, February 07, 2005
After a rather dismal Sunday, today started clear and cold. We chatted at breakfast with Brenda Everitt, our Summer support scientist, who urged us to talk to the IT people here to see if they could help with our software problems. Although doubtful, I went down to the Dome with her and Dana and told the IT people our troubles. After a few phone calls, I was on my way out to the AASTO with Brandon, one of the Summer IT gurus, and Christina, the cryo-tech and local LabVIEW expert. I showed them our computer problems, and within a few minutes Christina had eliminated all the likely LabVIEW causes. Brandon suggested we try one thing, and voila! our computer was suddenly talking to our thermal controllers. Just about then, Jessie called to tell us she had fixed our third computer, which had died completely a few days before, and was in the processes of restoring all of its data. And all this before 11am! During lunch, Jessie and Colin sent an urgent email to Mark Jarnyk in Australia, trying to arrange a phone meeting for that night to discuss the Gmount problems. Short, urgent emails and phone calls can go out via iridium phone any time of the day. It's a nice service to have available as the normal satellite access times usually mean a 24-hour turn-around for questions to people "off the ice." After lunch, we all headed out to our tasks: Jessie to the Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO) where the third computer is kept, Colin, Fred, and I to the AASTO. Jessie finished restoring the computer disks. Colin and I muddled through some LabVIEW code and managed to find and fix another problem: the computer now could talk to our network-controlled power switch, allowing us to turn on and off equipment remotely. Following Michael's emailed instructions from the night before, we then finished installing another program and, suddenly, the computer on the tower could talk to the temperature sensors in the telescope. Fred was working on a focusing scheme and a backup heater for the EES in the event of a prolonged power loss. We are all feeling a little under the weather, with vague cold-like symptoms, so everyone is slowing down a bit. Around 10pm, Jessie and Colin headed out to the AASTO for a brief phone meeting with Mark J. They learned that the Gmount software modifications needed are somewhat complicated and won't be ready before we have to go. Until then, we can continue to use the Gmount in azimuth-only mode. cheers, Doug Sunday, February 06, 2005
We've gotten much of the software system working, but there are still a few nagging problems that are becoming a bit frustrating. With only 4 days left to work, we've got a lot to get done. At least we've got plenty of sunlight to work under! cheers, Doug |
