Following yesterday’s post, here is part two of our aerial photography mission.

This set of images takes a closer look at the Dark Sector, where all the telescopes are located. There is SPT, which just had its first successful season, BICEP, which will go into its third and last season, and QUAD, which will finish its last season in a few weeks. The AST/RO telescope was decommissioned at the end of 2005, but the building is still around. The ground shield of the decommissioned VIPER telescope can also be seen. Since all of the IceCube detectors are in the ice, the only things that can be seen is the building housing the readout electronics (ICL) and some of the drillcamp buildings, already positioned for the upcoming season.
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The NSF schedules aerial photography missions at the beginning and end of the Summer season. The pictures are a valuable planning tool and make for a great historical record. This time it was my turn to go up. A great belated birthday present. I have dabbled in kite aerial photography before, but this seems to be a much simpler approach :-)

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