Away from the Office

Away from the Office
Originally uploaded by teenmachine.

<> I normally work alone here. It's usually just me, my snowmobile, and a sky slammed with auroras to light the way. Lately, though, I've been working with the construction crew to have a couple people come out on the days when I do cryogen deliveries. The main reason for this is to give people who usually spend all day working inside the station (which is the vast majority of people here) a little change of scenery. They get a chance to go outside and do something different, and I get a couple extra hands for my heavy-lifting work. The other luxury I have is that there are people along to witness some of the extraordinary sky scenes under which I do my work. On this day when I had two friends along for the ride, one of them captured the things I am usually the only one to see. You can see the dark outline of my snowmobile, me standing behind it, and, barely, the sled I tow to carry the cryo containers. The red light is my snowmobile headlight, with the cover painted red, as most outdoor lights are, as to not affect people's night vision. Above are the auroras, at their mid-day peak. Part of the telescope building is on the right. Scenes like this make my job worth it.