Mark Tolbert and Chris Haimberger from Toptica have met us in Antarctica! They will stay for 8 days to help us upgrade equipment and improve performance from our toptica lasers. We are operating these lasers, designed to work in well-controlled optical labs, in an extreme environment. We have to put a lot of care and thought into how the lasers were designed to ensure we get the best performance out of them. This season has had an unusual number of power outages, and we noticed strange behavior from our system after the outages. We are hoping to address this among other upgrades.
Mark and Chris brought good luck with them. Skies cleared, and we were able to collect very strong data from our refurbished Sodium & Iron channels. The good weather brought exciting Antarctic wildlife! We walked to Hut Point, where ice had melted to form a warm pool in the sun, and saw several Minke whales, “rafts” of Adelie penguins (dozens swimming in tight formations, called rafts, who walked towards us on shore), seals, and even an emperor penguin. The penguins, skua birds, and even whales were relatively loud- we could even hear them over the bulldozers in McMurdo town. We have never seen such active wildlife, and it reminded me of an African safari, with animals drawn to open water and warm sun. The water was so clear we could watch the seals and penguins swim. The BBC film crew even came out next to us to film. Not everyone gets to see so much on their first day on the ice! Cissi and Xianxin hadn’t seen more than the occasional Skua or sleeping seal before we arrived. We hope our luck continues!
Seal bothering penguins 
Emperor Penguin 
Minke Whale
thanks for sharing.