Update for 24 January 2009: I've been busy.
I recently started work at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, on the SOFIA project which is a 747SP with a large 2.5-meter telescope in the side of it. When it is fully operational it will fly at 41,000 to 45,000 feet, above most of the water vapor in the atmosphere in order to see the solar system and universe at wavelengths we can't see from the ground.
Before I started working in Antarctica, I worked as a Research Associate and Telescope Operator at the NASA 3-meter Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea from when it opened in 1979 until September 30, 2000.
This is a photo I took of the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) on Mauna Kea in 1982, with the dust cloud of El Chichon in the background. It has been on the cover of a textbook (Abel and Morrison, (Astronomy)), and used in advertising such as for Sky Publishing Corp (September 1983 S&T), and Mauna Kea Summit Adventures.
Yes, I like two wings, or two engines, or two of about anything. Click on the Pitts photo for an article on EAA in Kona.
What the well-dressed Croquet Player wears at the South Pole...(yep, it's me).
In 1998/1999 I went on an adventure that took me to the southernmost point on the planet. At the South Pole I operated an infrared telescope, called SPIREX for the University of Chicago/Yerkes Observatory and CARA, the Center for Astronomical Research in Antarctica. I spent a whole year there, from the fall of 1998 until November 1999, including the long winter months with 40 other people in isolation for 8 1/2 months. After the last plane left in the middle of February 1999, we would have no other airplanes land a the Pole until the end of October 1999, when it warmed up enough for them to return. I left the Pole toward the end of November, when SPIREX was removed to make way for the new instrument to winter called DASI. After 19 years of endless summer in Hawaii, I figured I could spend one day in endless winter...however, it would be a very LONG day!! Six months of daylight, followed by six months of darkness....
Click here for a photo gallery of the South Pole. (1999)
more photos
Still more photos (3/13/99)
Sunset 1999
Dressing for the Antarctic winter.
It was a wonderful trip, and one I will remember forever. As a matter of fact, I liked it down at the South Pole so much, I ended up going back for the 2000/2001 winter(!), this time working with all three CARA instruments, DASI, AST/RO, and Viper.
Click on the picture for an article that was front page news for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on Tuesday, May 29, 2001!
2000/2001Pictures:
Christchurch, New Zealand
Heading for Antarctica
On to the South Pole.
People of the South Pole 2000/2001
Random Shots
**Auroras 2001!
Penguins
Cravasses
McMurdo R & R
Transantarctic Mountains
My home address:
Charlie Kaminski
290 Manzanita Ave.
Santa Clara, CA 95051
Other Sites: