Day 8 – Chasing the Sun

So today is the day our intrepid solar physicists travel back to Sunny? Southampton! Given the ridiculous hours they have had to wake up on this week’s campaign – 4am, 5am etc you would think they would be jumping on the chance of a lie in. But it seems early morning’s are their routine now! […]

Day 7 – Life is a Labyrinth

The team are meeting at 4.20 am again, which by now seems quite normal for them. Today’s radar run is the last one of the this campaign, it’s going to be so weird tomorrow to get up at a ‘normal’ time. Good weird though. Dan has already checked the all sky camera in his room […]

Day 6 – Let it go! Let it Snow!

Sadie and Dan leave the guest house at 6.20 am and there is a fine dusting of snow on the ground. By the time they get to the radar David has already gone back to bed in the corridor. With everything working ok with the radar Sadie and Dan also take naps on the two […]

Day 5 – Wonderboy takes to the Ice

So today it’s Day 5. I’ll be honest by now I (Sadie) have no idea what day it is…it just feels like one really long night. This constant 24 hour darkness is so strange… is it this blog that psychologists will read in the future and say ‘on this day, day 5, that is where […]

Day 4 – We are Mountain People now!

This morning the team have to get up even earlier than the previous morning…they meet at 5.20 am to go up to the radar. Today they have TWO radar runs. One in the morning and one in the evening and they also plan to go to KHO to change the grating on the spectrograph in […]

Day 3 – Iorek’s back, back again!

Today started off very early once again. Getting up to leave the Guesthouse at 6:15 am is not getting easier, thats for sure. The team arrive at the EISCAT radar control room by 6:45am ready to start another run which is looking at electric fields around the aurora. This run is in collaboration with space […]

Day 2 – ASK us about the Polar Bear Alert

Well today’s radar run started off well, especially since we managed to be in the building by 6:30 am and the engineer was already here. It’s still bloody cold, but really clear skies. Dr Dan and David went straight back outside to the ASK platform to get the electronics box and bring it inside to […]

Day 1 – We Are Feeling Lucky

We (Dr Dan Whiter, lead scientist, David Price, PhD student and Dr Sadie Jones, Astronomy Public Engagement Leader) arrived in Longyearbyen yesterday afternoon. It’s Sadie’s first time in Norway, she’s never seen the aurora before (or a polar bear) and she’s super excited to be an honorary Solar Physicist for this week’s campaign. After having […]

Day 8: ‘Well I wish it could be Campaign everyday, when the aurora starts swaying and the sky begins to play’

Dan and Jades first experiment without Josh went by quietly, for the most part, measuring only thin clouds and stars. Although this was of course disappointing, stars meant gaps in the clouds and hence the team had, for the first time since Monday, a chance of measuring the elusive northern lights! By the end of […]

Day 7- “When you first took my hand on a cold campaign eve, You promised me aurora was waiting for me”

The storm has arrived! Last night, just after midnight, the much discussed storm reached Longyearbyen and subsequently the Breinosa mountain. Team DW watched from atop the mountain with anticipation – this was a high stakes game and the team had called the storms bluff . By deciding to attend the radar run, the team was […]