13 March 2004 Click image for full size!
South Pole is always full of surprises and I'm always learning about new instrumentation that I might not have been paying attention to, even if I had been right by it since I got here and probably walked right by every day on my way to work . This day, I got to experience the "pyroheliometer" (I think that's what it's called), and beautifully low-tech sun elevation measurement device. It's basically two glass spheres on a stand facing the sun with a piece of graphed paper behind it. As the sun tracks in front of the spheres, they act like magnifying glasses and burn a track in the paper through the day, leaving a record of the sun's elevation. An incredibly simple device that they probably don't make anymore!