[amsat-bb] Is winter dark at the south pole?

[Ronald Long <rlong3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well this is obviously off-topic, but I found it so interesting that I had 
to share it. At least it is about a satellite, the moon, the one that W2RS 
calls Oscar-Zero.

I read an article by a doctor who has wintered over at the South Pole. I 
always thought that during the winter when the sun doesn't rise, that it 
would be pitch black. But he writes ...

"The moon rises full or nearly full throughout the dark time. Because of 
the darkness, the light of the full moon on the ice seems like daylight. As 
winter nears its end the sun gradually reappears over the course of five or 
six weeks - at first, as a faint glow on the horizon - and then pops up on 
Sept 21 or 22. It's marvelous, beautiful. Year round the polar sky is 
incredible. You climb up a ladder, throw back a hatch, and there's the 
Aurora Australis overhead - like gigantic cords and hands, shaken from one 
end as though by a giant hand."

by Will Silva, M.D. in Harvard Magazine, Nov-Dec 1999.

ron w8gus.
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