This past weekend the Public Lab Gulf Coast Chapter hosted a Water Quality Meet-Up. During this event we took a field trip out to Bayou St. John to collected some water samples, worked with the coqui and did some pole mapping.

During previous pole mapping sessions at this site, we ran into difficulty with the pole being too short to stitch our images, and it breaking off! So this time we tried something a little different.

@eustatic and I had worked to create a longer pole with three tethers to hold it up and in place. With the eight of us mapping the site we were glad for the extra hands! It took four people to run the pole, and one to direct from a distance who should pull the tethers and when to move.

We also ran into tree problems for a moment, but found that by the time we got to the second site, the mapping became much easier. Practice!

Some of the suggestions the group had for improving the pole mapping included:

• Using different couplings such as as these or these (Diane)
• Use more joints in the pole (Grace)
• Try using a limb saw pole. Some extend really far! (Troy)

In terms of results, we were able to capture some pretty neat images with the pole. However when we went through them, we noticed a few errors. Turns out we had a little trouble with our rig. At the second site, we captured some good images with the infragram, but our rig was in the way! Also, at our second site, even though our camera lens was out the whole time, it stopped capturing photos. Still, some interesting results below:

Lots of trash!