The U.S. Coast Guard is tasked with maintaining the many critical navigational aids throughout the waterways of Alaska. Tracy Arm is entered across a narrow gap in a large bar, probably on old glacial moraine across the mouth of the fjord. The channel is marked by two buoys, one had been missing for a few days, ripped from its mooring by the impressive tides that surge across the bar. The buoy was back in place when we arrived, replaced by the crew of the USCG Anthony Petit, a Coast Guard buoy tender.
The U.S. Coast Guard buoy tender Anthony Petit in Tracy Arm.
Just a few crabs in the trap this morning! Tonight’s dinner will be crab cakes with a crab louie salad. We didn’t scrimp on the amount either, the cakes have twice as much crab as the recipe calls for. No problem… there is no better crab in the world than dungeness!Dungeness crab cakes with crab louie salad
A young black bear, well known to the staff of the Mendenhall Glacier visitor center, is attempting to catch salmon in Steep Creek, just below the visitor center parking lot. He was not too good at it, lots of splashing and no fish to show for the effort. The fish were there, bright red sockeye salmon busy spawning in the stream bed. This was this bear’s first year on his own, still learning the skills of survival.
Yes, I was really this close to the bear, this was a shot with a standard lens, no telephoto. Fortunately there was a small bridge over the creek to provide a slightly safer vantage point. The bear showed no interest in the gathering crowd of sightseers on the bridge, concentrating on the salmon.
A young Black Bear (Ursus americanus) trying his luck at fishing in Steep Creek, near Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska, 31 July 2006
Another processed infrared image from Mark Devenot. This time the subject is an everyday scene inside the facility with some of the crew standing in the hallway. The odd feature behind them is actually the large doors that lead into the Keck 1 Telescope dome. Everything looks much different in the thermal infrared…
In the hallway, a mid wave infrared image taken with a FLIR PM250 camera, with artist effects added in Photoshop, photo by Mark Devenot
For someone who has lately been used to working around relatively harmless power levels, beams of a few milliwatts, this is a reminder that lasers are potentially very dangerous. With a milliwatt power level beam there is no danger in getting a hand in the beam, be mindful of your eyes, but otherwise not a lot of concern. This is vastly different, beam power here is measured in tens of watts… The bright yellow beam looks so innocent, appears so harmless. Give that beam a chance, a momentary slip, and it will burn you… badly.
Anything in the beam is at risk, even components we thought were robust enough to withstand the power levels. In this case a reflective ND filter that was to reflect most of the beam into a beam dump, allowing a small amount to continue up the beam train for use in alignments. So much for the ratings on the manufacturer’s data sheet, the beam punched through the coating and even started to melt the glass…
A reflective ND filter burned through by the K1 AO Laser
Waimea is a place of rainbows. So common are they here it is a rare day that goes by without at least one rainbow.
But what does a rainbow look like at sunset? When the Sun’s light is reddened by passage through so much air and haze. The bow will begin to lose all color except for red, this creates a red bow…
A snow covered Mauna Kea at sunset as seen from Wiamea, with a bit of a red sunset bow above the western slope
I get home from shopping in Kona and unloading a pile of groceries from Costco. Looking forward to a relaxing Saturday evening. That changed when I checked my e-mail.
Several inches of snow in the Keck Telescope parking area on June 4th!Oh joy…
Much of the systems on the summit are automated, up to and including sending e-mails when thing go wrong. The system works pretty well at letting the engineering staff know when attention is needed. The automated messages do tend to bomb a person’s inbox when it really goes bad.
Dozens of warning messages have flooded my inbox…
WARNING! K2AO temps are warm! dmrackTemp=45.42 degC, enclosTemp=37 degC
Ugly numbers indeed! 37°C is about 100°F in the AO electronics room. I have no choice… shut it down. Messages from MKSS indicate that the power lines have been hit by lightning and the power is out to the summit. The backup power is holding out, but the glycol cooling system is off. Without cold glycol flowing in the lines many of the rooms are without cooling systems to take away the heat generated by all of the computers and other electronics.
A very nice musical compilation based on imagery of and from the Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The set is put to some very appropriate music by Marian Call. Give it a listen while you consider the wear and tear of seven years on Mars…
