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This shot of the town of Rooi Els (300 houses total) is taken from atop my rental car, parked next to a small nature preserve right in the center of town, adjacent to the ocean. |
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http://GigapanMagazine.org vol 1 issue 2
Contributor: Cap'n Jack Sharp The vehicles at the South Pole require a lot of tender loving care. It's cold outside. Steel becomes brittle. Oil doesn't flow and everything gets encased with ice. Winter is fast approaching. Most of the vehicles that we use here now are on tracks or skies. Rubber tires just won't do in these temperatures. The ground is an uneven maze of white drifts that are sculpted and redistributed daily by wind-blown snow and ice. Even the tracked dozers and snowmobiles can get bogged down in sugary snow or a large drift. The heavy equipment shop is usually busy completing preventative maintenance to keep the vehicles running and repairing broken machines that have not fared well in the cold. Broken parts can become an insurmountable issue when replacements are needed and not available until the planes start flying again. You can see a variety of motor vehicles in here today. Have a look around to discover what's making tracks at the South Pole as sunset approaches. The 15 images of this panorama were photographed with a Nikon D80 and stitched with Autopano Pro. |
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http://GigapanMagazine.org vol 1 issue 2
Contributors: Katy Jensen and Nathan Greenland So, here we are in the arches between the elevated station and the Dome. Within the arches you find the Facilities, Engineering, Maintenance and Construction (FEMC) shops, the power plant, and massive areas for storing building supplies, spare parts and fuel. The nearby ice tunnels run under the surface near the arches, and they connect the station and the arches to a number of outlying structures. This cavernous room with the monumental steel doors is in the logistics facility, which is commonly called the LO. It is designed for receiving incoming cargo. Most of the new materials arriving at the Pole on next summer’s planes and on the traverse will come straight here. In the coming years we hope to also move most of our storage off the berms and into these well-lit and wind-resistant arches. Once through these doors, the cargo will be sorted, inventoried and put in its proper place. It will be a major improvement in inventory control. The last plane of summer left here a month ago, and there will be no more flights until mid-October at the earliest, and so this room has been fairly quiet lately. At least there haven't been many people down here. We don't get a lot of snowfall at the Pole, but with temperatures that never get much above 0 degrees Fahrenheit, the snow that does fall doesn't melt. We are approaching winter, and with recent winds of up to 30 knots, the persistent snow is swirling just above the ground in gossamer, white rivulets. The wandering snow seems always to be looking for a way inside, and it has found a convenient inward route through a gap in the LO doors. Ours is a very light, very fine, powdery snow, at least on the surface. Easily picked up and put outside on the blade of a shovel, much of it quickly returns to us on the edge of the wind. A quarter inch gap in a doorway can create a deep drift that extends far into a room. As we work at tightening up the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for the winter, this room looks like a good place to do some snow shoveling and an equally good place for creating a hindrance to the incoming snow. And so we see a doc with a shovel moving the snow outside where it belongs, and we see the carpenters at work tightening up the gap the doors. Have a look around this place. Even if it is -55 degrees Fahrenheit in the LO today, and the wind is howling mightily beyond the doors, you probably won't even have to dust the snow off your keyboard when you are done. The 23 images of this panorama where photographed with a Nikon D80 and stitched with Autopano Pro. |
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http://GigapanMagazine.org vol 1 issue 2
Contributors: Camille Parisel and Erik Verhagen It is the day before sunset at the South Pole. IceCube Drill Camp is deserted and cold. During the summers of 2004 to 2008, hundreds of scientists and ice drillers were at the South Pole for this massive project. Their multiyear goal is to complete a huge neutrino detector under the Antarctic ice. When they are done, they will have drilled 80 holes and placed in each of them a string of 60 light-detecting modules (DOM’s). The 4800 DOM's will be a single 1 cubic kilometer telescope in the clear ice deep beneath the South Pole. We are approaching winter 2009. The drills have stopped. Nobody is deploying DOM’s and most of the IceCube crew has left. Today only 2 IceCubers remain at the South Pole. They will stay here through the winter, working on the computers as they gather data from flashes of light passing through the ice. If you were here at the South Pole this summer, you might be wondering about the location and the size of the drill camp. It has been moved a little towards the northwest, and some of the buildings, most noticeably the TOS, and the reels of hose and wire have been moved to winter storage on the berms. Once the sun returns, the buildings and materials will be dragged back to the drill camp and everything will be in place to start a new drilling season by December. When you look at this icy landscape, notice the position of the sun in the sky. Tomorrow the sun will sink below the horizon and the South Pole will fall into the deepening twilight, waiting for the darkness of winter to begin. The 62 images of this panorama were photographed with a Nikon D80 and stitched with Autopano Pro. |
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http://GigapanMagazine.org
vol 1 issue 2 Contributors: W. Lance Roth, Kristina Shiroma and Katy Jensen Here is the interior of the Balloon Inflation Facility, (BIF) as we prepare to launch dual plastic balloons. We are using plastic today because the latex balloons break prematurely in the cold temperatures of an Antarctic winter. The plastic balloons are able to carry their payloads high enough to gather the data that we need. The payloads are radiosondes that are carried by the balloons to altitudes of 10,000-11,000 meters above sea level. There they collect data such as humidity, temperature, pressure, wind direction and wind speed, and they send the information down to a radio receiver at the Pole. In the winter months, information from South Pole’s daily weather balloons is sent back to the United States to be used in forecasting weather worldwide. In the summer, the meteorologists launch balloons twice daily to collect the same type of weather information to support the planes flying over Antarctica as well as provide information for worldwide weather forecasting. During the summer you would see round, white latex weather balloons flying above the South Pole. There are two payloads today. In addition to the meteorologist’s radiosonde, the balloons will carry a separate sonde for the scientists from the South Pole’s Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO). They send up their weekly balloons to measure ozone levels in the stratosphere. Their sondes collect and transmit data that will be used to study changes in the ozone hole which develops over the South Pole with the return of the sun each year. As September and sunrise approach, ARO will also be increasing the frequency of their balloon launches. There are a few hints in this photograph that tell you that you are somewhere very cold. Have a look around and see what you can find. The 24 images of this panorama were photographed with a Nikon D80 and stitched with Autopano Pro. |
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The largest King Penguin rookery in the world is in St. Andrews Bay on South Georgia. The penguins have a complicated reproductive cycle, and this rookery is occupied by penguins year-round. They are a noisy group, but they are not as smelly as the Adelie, Gentoo or Chinsatrap Penguins that we met on this voyage. The King Penguins eat mostly fish, not krill. The difference in diet accounts for the gentler aroma of the colony. There are probably a few hundred thousand King Penguins in the panorama. Count them if you wish, but do look for other things that are going on amid this multitude of birds. |
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This is the same as my other pano with the exception that the good South Pole doc (grannydoc) went to the trouble of drawing in each of the constellations that are visible in the sky. You can see the same pano without the stars drawn in at my other pano:
http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=30450 |
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On January 4, 2009, six ski teams from Norway and the United Kingdom began a 483-mile race across Antarctica's frigid, high, dry plain from Russia's Novolazarovskaya Base to America's Amundsen Scott Research Station at the South Pole. Here we see their camp at the South Pole as their plane waits to take the earliest finishers back to Novo. The support team, with their trucks and tents, will wait for the rest of the ski teams to reach the Pole. When everyone has crossed the finish line the remaining skiers and most of the support staff will fly back north. The trucks are going to drive back across the ice. History buffs will remember that Roald Amundsen from Norway and England's Robert Falcon Scott had the first race to the South Pole in 1912. Technology has brought us better sleds and tents, safer fuel and food and warmer, lighter clothes to make the journey in 2009 safer and more comfortable than the crossing from the Ross Sea a century ago. Scott experimented with motor vehicles for his journey, but had none of the success of the trucks that you see in this photograph. Despite the improvements in the tools for polar exploration, Antarctica remains a challenging environment. The people who participated in this year's race will no doubt attest to the hardships that still meet those who venture into the far south. Congratulations to all of you. The 34 images of this pamorama were photographed with a Nikon D80 and stitched with Aoutopano Pro. |
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The sky at the South Pole is often monochrome. We see a lot of solid light gray or white skies and we see a lot of solid blue skies. This sky on December 27 with all of these high, wispy clouds was remarkable.
Beneath all the blue and the trails of mare's tails, you can see the tents of the Norwegian and Finnish ski trekkers. Both teams accomplished the 700 mile journey from the coast to the Pole. Getting here took them about 6 weeks time. The Twin Otter is here to take both teams back to Patriot Hills, from where they will leave for their homes. The South Pole Christmas tree, the American Flag and the Geographic South Pole marker are on the right side of the image. We will be moving the marker for the geographic Pole on January 1. The 54 images of this panorama were photographed with a Nikon D 80 and stitched with Autopano Pro. |
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"Lord Venkateshwara Temple in Tirupati is the best example of history, heritage and divinity preserved. Being an inseparable part of devotees lives for centuries, Tirupati Temple has grown from strength to strength and has become the most revered Hindu pilgrimage site in the world. Also crowned as the most visited and second richest worship place in the world, Tirupati Temple is one path to finding god."
The ancient and sacred temple of Sri Venkateswara is located on the seventh peak, Venkatachala (Venkata Hill) of the Tirupati Hill, and lies on the southern banks of Sri Swami Pushkarini. It is by the Lord's presidency over Venkatachala, that He has received the appellation, Venkateswara (Lord of the Venkata Hill). He is also called the Lord of the Seven Hills. The Temple of Sri Venkateswara has acquired unique sanctity in Indian religious lore. The Sastras, Puranas, Sthala Mahatyams and Alwar hymns unequivocally declare that, in the Kali Yuga, one can attain mukti, only by worshipping Venkata Nayaka or Sri Venkateswara. |