I got back to SPM yesterday with Ian Huss and Justus Drake from DFM Engineering to start work on the telescope installation. The crane will arrive in time to begin the heavy lifting Thursday morning, but we wanted to spend a couple days preparing. In short, we need to get all of the nuts, bolts, and various pieces of equipment required for the heavy lifting organized and put into place. In addition, we wanted to get the big parts in the containers ready for the lift, so we need to unbolt everything from the containers, and get the rigging set up as much as possible. Finally, we need to prepare the enclosures for the installation. The main thing we need to do is drill and tap the mounting holes on the top of the pier so we can bolt the telescope into place. We also need to test the gantry crane hoists and get the scissors lift table operational.

So far we have all of the holes drilled and tapped at Site #2,  and we have four to go at Site #3. We should finish this tomorrow.

The hoists work at Sites #2 and #3.

We got the scissors lift table operating at Site #2 today, we should be able to finish the other two tomorrow.

Pieces are unbolted from the containers for the telescopes #2 and #3, I will finish the third one tomorrow.

So, we are making good progress, and we should be prepared for the arrival of the crane.

Here are a few photos.

Here is the hatch cover opening mechanism that Ruben Lopez installed at Site #2 while I was away. This work is complete at all three sites.

Testing the gantry crane hoist at Site #2. Here we are just lifting a 1-ton chain hoist to the observing floor. Crane hoist works fine.

View from the top.

Justus drilling a hole on the top of the pier at Site #2.

And here he is drilling the big hole for the main telescope support at Site #3.

Ian getting the hydraulics set up for the scissors lift table at Site #2.

Ian taking the lift table for a quick test drive. It works fine, but we need to add more oil to the reservoir to lift it all the way.

Hydraulics stowed beneath the observing floor.