The EISCAT radar dishes in Svalbard are two huge radar dishes one that is fully mobile and one that is stationar pointing up the magnetic field lines (32 meters and 42 meters in diameter respectivly).
We drove up to EISCAT in the car and when we got there we took the opportunity to take some pictures. It looked like we were on Hoth and I expected a giant Ak-Ak to come stumbling over the hill.
The technicians there were kind enough to move the dish for us and I quickly ran back to get it all on video while Stu took a time lapse with his camera’s wide angle lens. Just got to say this, “It was so totally WICKED!”
We then headed inside to warm up and although watch and filming the dish moving was awesome my hands did not like it much. Anja took us on a short tour of the building showing us the instruments and the control room. We then headed into the corridor where they have a huge data set displayed on the wall from four of the EISCAT stations over the same time span.
On our way out we heard about a Polar Bear sighting down by the dog cages very close to town so in a chance that we could catch a sighting we quickly kitted up and headed back down the hill. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately the polar bear had been chased away from the town and back either across the fjord or into the mountains.
Even though we did not see a Polar Bear it was an awesome mini field trip and we got to see the dish move. Anja also said she could arrange for us to go up there and stand in the big dish digging out the snow that had built up in it which would be an awesome thing to film so hopefully in the near future we will be doing that. Tomorrow Stu and I are going to take the scooter out to the fjord and have a look around.
LIGHT!!!!!!!!!
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