Frozen Member
Hey any of you folks been to the Antarctic?I was there in the 70's and Custom Skiffs thread got me wondering. He suggested starting this thread so here I am. Any one with any interest feel free to post frequently as I have a lot of resources for info and regular contact with a lot of fellow OAE's. JimmyM
Used to work w/ a guy who was a Navy Sea Bee who wintered over - I think he said at Ross, not the Pole.
Frozen Member
Most likely at McMurdo station on Ross Island. There were a lot of CB types down there in the earlier years. Now the whole show is run by civilian contractors. Several of the folks currently there wish the Navy never left. We got things done albiet in a somewhat round about fashion. JimmyM
Retro Member #1235
Never been, but there's a bunch of our equipment down there at Smithsonian Astrophysics operation. A couple of years ago I had running email with a guy who spent the summer one year and winter the next. Pretty big temp gradient in the sleeping quarters if I remember correctly.
I never could figure why they needed cryogenic refrigerators down there, seems it should be sufficiently
[ 02-21-2002, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: Ed Harrow ]
If their 'scope is seeing in infrared the ccd (?)will need to be considerably colder than even Antarctic Winter ambient won't it?
Senior Member
In a word: yes. I found a description of the receivers on the Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope that lists the 230 GHz SIS receiver's noise temperature at 55-75 K, which comes to... (let's see ... (55-273)*1.8 + 32 is...) -360 F.
Yep. That's cold alright.
-T
By the way TR, at submillimeter frequencies you're in the gray area between optical and radio, and while the signal is collected by a telescope, the signal is directed by a waveguide into a heterodyne receiver.
More than you ever wanted to know about the scope can be found at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~adair/AST_RO/pasp.pdf
We now return you to boat topics...
Retro Member #1235
Yeah, that's the scoop. I've got a friend down under (you reading the mail, Mal?) who just retired from CSIRO. He did some really neat stuff, I think his last was a 12-guide unit for Parks Observatory, cooled with one CTI refrigerator. Really cool stuff here.
Here's Mel's wave guide. Heck of a piece.
Cool picture:
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/imag...ll_Shostak.jpg
And for the rest of the story:
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/
And, yes, we do over-use the word "cool" LOL
[ 02-21-2002, 04:55 PM: Message edited by: Ed Harrow ]
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote