Saturday 27 February 2016

Hiking: Mine 2b

Mine 2b is within the town boundaries and is one of the few places you can hike to without avalanche or other survival gear. It is located between Nybyen and the town and you can see it even in the dark as it has lighting. For most people its the first place they visit when they get here as its not too far away and is a fairly short adventure.



You can see it in this picture as the blob of light halfway up the mountain. I went up with Ryan and Lloyd a few weeks ago when we had about 4 hours of light on our side. The way up is steep and we had to take a few breaks on the way

This is about half way up the mountain


This is the view of the town from the mine (you can see that we're losing light already). The place is open to the weather and has a little step you have to use to hop up into the main area. In this area there is a box with letters in and a guest book


At the end of this room is a staircase covered in snow that leads to another steeper staircase leading up to the next area

Most of these photos are from Ryan, it was pitch black in there and Lloyd was the only one with a headlamp so he had to go first and Ryan used his camera as a light. At the top of this staircase was a massive room with cart tracks on the floor and an old bridge which we decided to cross (not the best idea, it turns out you aren't meant to cross it really) but we got some great photos from it.


 View from the railing

 View of Nybyen from the bridge
  
Pictures from my phone of Lloyd 

Got a few of Ryan as well


 Once we got across the bridge we were still in the big room, just on the other side. The whole room circles around so the bridge is actually pointless to go across, but it was an interesting few minutes at least. This area has gaps where its open to the elements and its completely frozen inside and has great ice formations due to this:



The floor is covered in ice so you had to be careful where you stepped. This area is visited quite often by people and they've signed the walls in chalk


We added to the signatures.

There is another area above this room, the stairs to it aren't inside, they are outside and have a small metal railing to help you. We had basically lost daylight by this point so we decided not to go up to the last bit. If we go up again we'll go up to the top and i'll put up pictures on here of the last room. 

We started heading down and some of these pictures might show what the staircase looks like:


This was one of the lesser covered areas, some parts of the staircase were completely covered in snow and the only way you could get up was by following the footwells other people had made. 


This is the view we had when we got back out, it was basically dark, and it was around 3pm in the afternoon at the latest. This was 3 or 4 weeks ago now, the light is much better so we will probably go again soon. 

The best part of this was the trip down. I had a little sled with me and we all took turns using it to get down. The trip up took maybe 40 minutes, the trip down took us maybe 10. 

This place is a fantastic place to visit. Its a cultural heritage site and you can see how the mines used to operate, There is another room that I didn't put up a picture from which was a room about half way up the long staircase that had belts for moving coal and pushing it down a chute. 

Tips: Bring a headlamp. Even if you go when its light outside, it wont be light everywhere inside.
         It's icy as hell in there so be careful, I went over in one of the rooms trying to explore
         Bring a sled to get down :) 
       
- Miriam

Friday 26 February 2016

Dish is what I've been doing

The 42 meter dish

It's been a spectacular week, with some beautiful sights. 

This week contained the second half of our field work at the European Incoherent Scatter (EISCAT) RADARS. There are two dishes: the one up there ESR42 (42 meter), and the ESR32 (32 meter). The number is the diameter of the dish, they're pretty big! The 32 has gears so you can point it in different directions, the 42 is fixed looking down the magnetic field lines.
ESR = EISCAT Svalbard Radar

There they are! 

The work involves launching high power radio waves at the ionosphere and using the signal we get back to find out properties of the plasma up there.

Always working hard!




....or eating.


On the weekend we took some extra people with us on an Aberystwyth style hike. (A hike with a bit more talking)


It got quite cold on the way so we had a cuddle break. I say we, I mean these guys


Whilst on our trek we made some friends, they even started walking towards us! 



It wan't only the wildlife that provided some lovely pictures.


As a bonus we got to see the new pups getting trained to become sledge pullers. They were adorable,

Just yesterday we got to revisit EISCAT and spent some time in the dish. Then we had the opportunity to go visit SuperDarn. It is a coherent scatter RADAR and is very good at telling how fast the aurora is moving. It's very big and made mostly of wires so mind blowing pictures are a lot harder to take. But I got some of the bandwagon that brought us up.





After all the field work these past couple weeks we now have to write up a report, but that's not going to prevent us from adventuring! 


Ryan

Saturday 13 February 2016

Please, no flash photography



"Taking an aurora photo is easy. Taking a good aurora photo is hard!
Dennis Mammana                  


So we have now been here a month. We've all settled very nicely and still Svalbard is proving itself an amazing adventure. Unfortunately routine isn't something space physicists are allowed. Starting this week we began our field work. Which unlike lectures that start at 9 in the morning, we meet up at 4:30PM and stay up at the observatory until 1:00AM. (I prefer working at night so that's been a bonus!) When we switch back to lectures I think I'll suffer with the worst non-flight related jet lag. 

Getting to the Observatory
We have spent everyday at the Kjell Henriksen Observatory (KHO), getting there was always quite fun. We would meet up at UNIS and ride a van all the way up to mine-7, and then take the beltwagon (ATV) to the observatory. 

The Aber 7 riding the beltwagon
   

Monday
Monday was the first day there. Luckily it was a light introduction so there wasn't so much to do, and the conditions were amazing to see the aurora.



On the right is the KHO, it hosts many optical instruments (I'll make some posts on the sciencey side later) and is the building we spent most of the week in. We were given a tour of the main instruments we were going to us and study. The reason we can't where head-torches or use camera flashes it that it interferes with the instruments (and that ruins the measurements).  

Tuesday

There was something special about this day... PANCAKES! We were running the Northern most pancake day. The KHO having a kitchen made this a lot more achievable.




Although we have a lot of fun we have to work as well. One of our main duties was to monitor the readings and predict when we'll see aurora and inform people if there is aurora outside.

Look at me working hard!


We did take breaks though and had a laugh playing Welsh hangman.


And that's Tuesday!


Wednesday
Calibration day! I'll explain the details in another post, but all the instruments were turned off and we climbed over the roof and helped calibrate some of the instruments for the rest of the year. (They don't do it again so there's a lot riding on us!)  

Taken by the KHO
That's me in the blue coat, we thought we were pulling some equipment up to the roof. It turns out we didn't need to pull this particular piece up, so we were loitering on the roof for about 20 minutes and got caught being nosey!
We had a journalist from France join us who will be compiling a video of what we did over the last two days. He may have caught me slipping while trying to catch a fragile box.



Thursday
The final day at the KHO, and as luck would have the cloudiest. Thursday was filled with mathematical work. So the whole group spent the day triangulating the position of a line current aurora that we witnessed on Tuesday (or would have if we weren't eating pancakes... nah we had gone home at that point).  

As you can see we are very good at concentrating on our work.


Overall it was a fantastic week, one I won't (can't for exam reasons) forget for a long time!





Tuesday 2 February 2016

Tips for Living in Svalbard

Since we've been here there are few tips and tricks we've picked up. I'll probably end up doing a few posts on these.

1. Everything here is expensive barring alcohol (ryan's doing a food post later) so try and bring things like teabags/coffee with you

2. The wind changes a lot, so carry an extra scarf/hat and pair of goggles in your bag in case you need it.

3. Slippers, we take off shoes at UNIS so its handy to have slippers to walk around in unless you don't mind socks. We have been told we will have a fire test in a few months though so running outside in socks would not be fun.

4. Don't wear cotton as a base layer, it makes you colder. This applied to socks too, one pair of woollen socks keeps my feet warmer than 3 pairs of thermal and cotton socks.

5. Have two different types of hats and scarves. January here has been fairly mild this year so we can wear lighter hats and scarves but March is meant to be the coldest month so we will need heavier hats for the colder days.

6. Check the current temperature before going out: http://158.39.149.183/Gruvefjellet/index.html
this link is the weather station on the side of the valley near Longyearbyen.

7. For gloves everyone is different, we were told that mittens keep your hands warmer as it allows warm air to circulate. I have two pairs of normal gloves, a woollen pair and thinsulate pair which has been fine for me so far. But if it gets colder or on hikes you would need warmer gloves or mittens. It is also suggested you get a pair of thin gloves which helps in the safety training and on hikes so you don't have to expose your hands to air if you need to use your fingers.

8. They do sell UNIS coats which are very good but they are around £200, I know a few people with those coats but my £80 coat has been just as good. (which I got from Mountain Warehouse after Christmas in the sale)

9. Shoes-wise. I got re-enforced rubber type ones that are water and windproof. They are good but everyone has the same problem with shoes where if you stand still outside in the snow and ice it will make your feet cold (we did that a lot in safety course) but if you're moving its fine. My shoes are good but don't have as good grip as others, some people have hiking type shoes with grippy soles which is helpful for walking to the uni and hiking. You can always get crampons or shoe spikes if you need to.

10. Get a face mask. Even a thin one will help keep your face warm if its cold or windy (wind chill is a big thing here). I have only used mine a few times so far but they are good to have for when it gets colder in a few months.

11. It is easy to get used to the dark as we get a bit of twilight most days now. But it does make you feel tired a lot. The constant daylight is apparently harder to get used to but i'll talk about that in a few months when i've experienced it.

12. It takes around 35-45 minutes to walk to the UNIS from Nybyen so plan accordingly.

13. You can use a magnetometer to find out if an aurora will be happening soon (A drop in the blue 'lyr' line is what you are watching for) Here Is where you can look. You can also use the UNIS all sky camera to see. Although it may look bright on the all sky camera it will be dimmer when you go out.

14. Go up to Mine 2b, it is a cultural heritage site that you'll will walk past most days (up on the right hand valley as you walk towards town). It is really cool. A post about it will be up soon.

That's all I can think of for now. More will be coming soon.

Miriam