Life in Antarctica.

Definitely you should be careful with voltage as external source will have low internal resistance and keep the voltage high - no voltage drop as with batt under load.

Antarctica is an interesting relatively untouched pristine place.

"The people who travel to or live in Antarctica fall into two main groups, those who live and work on scientific research stations or bases, and tourists. No-one lives in Antarctica indefinitely in the way that they do in the rest of the world. It has no commercial industries, no towns or cities, no permanent residents. There are around 66 scientific bases in Antarctica, of which about 37 are occupied year round. There are about 4,000 people through the summer months and about 1,000 overwinter each year. The US base at McMurdo Sound has up to 1,000 personnel at the peak time, this is the nearest there is to a town. With such a rapid turn-over of people, Antarctic bases are more like oil-rigs or military bases than towns. Tourist figures for the 2015-16 season show that there were 38,478 visitors. Significantly down on the peak figure of 47,225 in the peak season so far in 2007-08. The drop being due to the fact that large ships are no longer allowed to visit Antarctica due to fuel spillage dangers."
From interesting facts here: Who lives in Antarctica? - The Antarctic Population

Encap said:

Antarctica is an interesting relatively untouched pristine place.

"The people who travel to or live in Antarctica fall into two main groups, those who live and work on scientific research stations or bases, and tourists. No-one lives in Antarctica indefinitely in the way that they do in the rest of the world. It has no commercial industries, no towns or cities, no permanent residents. There are around 66 scientific bases in Antarctica, of which about 37 are occupied year round. There are about 4,000 people through the summer months and about 1,000 overwinter each year. The US base at McMurdo Sound has up to 1,000 personnel at the peak time, this is the nearest there is to a town. With such a rapid turn-over of people, Antarctic bases are more like oil-rigs or military bases than towns. Tourist figures for the 2015-16 season show that there were 38,478 visitors. Significantly down on the peak figure of 47,225 in the peak season so far in 2007-08. The drop being due to the fact that large ships are no longer allowed to visit Antarctica due to fuel spillage dangers."
From interesting facts here: Who lives in Antarctica? - The Antarctic Population

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Ok, but how many are into lasers? Those are the only ones of importance. :crackup:

BobMc said:

Ok, but how many are into lasers? Those are the only ones of importance. :crackup:

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Hmm... That's a question. Some LPF member currently living in Antarctica here?

I can imagine lasers can find their use in various scientific measurments, non lethal animal protection, long range emergency signaling etc.

For example here:

New laser to probe Antarctic atmosphere — Australian Antarctic Division

Life and lasers in Antarctica: Faces behind the balaclavas | CIRES

And here - not in/on but above:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-tests-icesat-2-s-laser-aim

BobMc said:

Ok, but how many are into lasers? Those are the only ones of importance. :crackup:

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Access to Antarctica is restricted by the Antarctic Treaty which celebrated it's 50 Anniversary in 2009
See: ATS - The Antarctic Treaty

There is nothing in the Antarctic Treaty that would prohibit making a laser pointer a requirement or strong suggestion for all tourists visiting Antarctica perhaps as a suggested safety location beacon, which is not a bad idea actually.

Would have to be proposed added by agreement of all participating nations at the next Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting
Could be added for instance to the guidelines for tourists. See: http://www.ats.aq/documents/recatt/Att483_e.pdf

Probably one of the guys at the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) cold help you get that going Bob or at least point you in the correct direction on how to get such a thing proposed and who would be the group or person to contact about that.
See:website here: https://www.comnap.aq/SitePages/Home.aspx

Radim said:

Hmm... That's a question. Some LPF member currently living in Antarctica here?

I can imagine lasers can find their use in various scientific measurments, non lethal animal protection, long range emergency signaling etc.

For example here:

New laser to probe Antarctic atmosphere — Australian Antarctic Division

Life and lasers in Antarctica: Faces behind the balaclavas | CIRES

And here - not in/on but above:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-tests-icesat-2-s-laser-aim

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Well, if there are, we want beam shots!

Radim said:

...and it went very well. I love your avatar.

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BobMc said:

Probably something like that, heat enclosed case. Battery life would be a major issue. Wondering how it would work if you hard wired the laser up to a power source?



Your Nikon 90 deserves a at-a-boy!

( ok maybe the operator too ).

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Thanks guys. @BobMc I was the operator op:

-Alex

Good morning, Alex. Just wanted to wish you a nice day today.

paul1598419 said:

Good morning, Alex. Just wanted to wish you a nice day today.

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I like this post, Paul. Seemingly without any value and off topic, but I see there is a value making Alex aware of you wishing a nice day to him. It shows how friendly the community here is. So even higher value is added by such a post. Wanted to rep you, but still spreading... :beer:

I just wanted to express it.

Thank you, Radim. I just felt like expressing that to Alex this morning. He is in the same time zone as I am so it is still morning here. :yh:

paul1598419 said:

Good morning, Alex. Just wanted to wish you a nice day today.

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Hello Paul. Thanks for the good day wishes today, it is very friendly of you :wave: Hope you have a great day too!

-Alex

Thank you, Alex. I got five new diodes from Techhood today. They a were sent to me by Dr.Laser to spectro as they are claimed to be 505nm diodes. Hope to get most of those done by the end of the day.

Radim said:

Oh, definitely. Might be some airplanes, but high altitude for sure. But no light pollution and incredibly bright stars. There that would be different level of laserpainting. Just low temperatures could be problem for lasers.

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There is no need to travel to such remote areas to get rid of light pollution really, and there are several with a bit more acceptable climates as well.

If you want to be in a really dark area, go into the desert, for example in egypt. It gets -amazingly- dark if you drive away from civilization for 50 to 100 km and stay there over night.

The milky way is brightly visible, and you can often see it as nights there are clear without a cloud in sight.

In such dark areas your eyes fully adopt to low light, which makes the night sky look amazing. A few years ago i camped overight in the egyption desert, and actually got annoyed by the starlight keeping me awake through the tent canvas - after spending a couple of hours out there is appeared so bright that i could swear someone had turned on the rangerovers headlights or something like that.

These areas are not that hard to reach, i think it was two or three hours drive from cairo, and i suppose it would be just as dark just 30 minutes out, but lacking the funky rock formations and such.

I did visit in winter though, so you get a decent amount of night, and although nice and warm during daytime it does get very cold at night out there (roughly around freezing point, which is not crazy cold but when it was 25-30 centigrade during daytime surely feels like it).