Telescope duties

As the only two winterovers working on SPT, Alex and I both needed to be familiar with every aspect of telescope operations, such as:

  • Telescope hardware, including pressure vacuums, cryogenic fridges, and the installation and removal of certain optics components. We even had to replace a motor in the middle of winter!
  • Observation scheduling, ensuring that the telescope is doing the right things and that any problems are caught early.
  • Automatic data processing, analysis, and data quality monitoring. This is my personal strong suit; I worked on a side project over the winter to include several new plots of relevant quantities in our data-quality-monitoring web tool.
  • Telescope maintenance. Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've greased a telescope's elevation bearings in -100°F. And that's without the windchill!

Though I could have worked on my PhD analyses without ever stepping foot in Antarctica, I wanted to gain first-hand experience of working on the telescope. Though there are far too many moving parts for anybody to become an expert on the entire instrument in just one year, working on the telescope lent me a much broader working knowledge of SPT, and of observational astronomy and large hardware projects in general, than I would have gained had I not wintered.

Station duties

A winterover's responsibilities encompass much more than just their official job. Other regular tasks included:

  • Weekly cleaning jobs (colloquially referred to as "House Mouse" by the locals), covering anything from tidying up to scrubbing toilets to shoveling snow.
  • Emergency response. I was a member of the fire team, and received official fire training from the Denver Fire Department to prepare for this responsibilty.
  • Dishwashing. A common debate over winter meals was whose dishpit playlist was the best.

I won't lie and say it was always easy living in a confined space with a small group of people; the experience, however, was invaluable. Wintering taught me to navigate the social intricacies that come with such a challenge, and to put aside my personal feeling and be professional when the situation called for it. I continued to work at a high level even under the pressure of a possible fire or a telescope emergency. I regularly communicated both the content and the importance of our research to the non-scientific support staff on station. Despite the stresses inherent to the situation, I am continually grateful to have had the opportunity. It was an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Image: The South Pole Winter 2023 crew. Photo by Christian Rahl.