Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 07/21/2007 - 07:18

Peggy and team.

      What measurements will you be taking onthe lake water and sediments? When you sample the lake sediments, is the team equipped with a raft? I am interested in your sampling methods.

Peggy,

I printed out the introduction to PolarTREC and the Alaskan link and gave it to the 7o summer school students as well as the URL link. I told them that all of the Biology teachers would give extra credit if they contacted you. The credit would depend on how many times they contacted you and what you had them do.

On another note, astronomy questions.

1. Would you measure the altitude of the North Star, Polaris? I can use that with my kids. As a hint. When you GPS the site, the latitude of your study site should be the same as the altitude of Polaris.

2. Can you see the Milky Way?

3. I did not think about it or I would have given you a star map. Can you see Sagittarius (looks like a teapot) or Scorpio? Those are Zodiac constelaltions that lie in the southern sky here. Jupiter is in the constellation Scorpio, can you see the planet?

4. There is some Aurora activity from the Sun. Let me know if you see Norther Lights.

5. If you camers can be set with the shutter left open, point the camera at the North Star and leave the shutter open for as long as you can(hours if possible). You can shoot some great star rings. If you point the camera at the eastern horizon, you can get a different type of star trail.

Steve

Peggy Foletta

Hi Steve. Good to hear from you. I'm looking forward to hearing from the summer school Earth Science students, too! We will retreive temperature probes set out in past years, also collect sediment in traps set out on earlier visits, use an inflatable boat to collect a sediment core from the botton of Allison Lake, measure the diameter of lichen growing on rocks below the glaciers from near the glacier to further from the glacier (the larger the diameter the longer the lichen has grown, indicating the longer time since the rock was covered by the glacier), to name a few. I meet the team next week here in Anchorage and will find out more when we head out to the field. I'm looking forward to gettng started.1. I will be taking GPS readings everywhere we go and will put them in my journal reports. I'll have to see if I can rig up a clinometer to measure the altitude of Polaris for you.
2. I don't know whether we will be able to see the Milky Way. I have been asleep during the few dark hours we have here my first two nights. I'll get back to you on this one.
3. I will check out the constellations when I get the chance.
4. I don't expect to see auroras this time of year because we will have very few dark hours.
5. If I get a chance I'll try to get some night sky shots.
Peggy