Blog

The optics guys finished coating the last primary mirror today. Here is a photo of the second one...   ...and here is a photo of the third one.   In the mean time, we finished assembling the primary mirror cells today. Here is the mirror cell from Site #3 after completion.     The other two look the same, so no photos. We plan to work on installation of mirror doors and trusses tomorrow. We should finish these tasks in the next couple days, after which we will be ready to start installing the primary mirrors into the mirror cells. However, the local crew nee...

The local SPM staff got the first primary mirror coated today. They are already getting ready to coat the second one, and we hope to have all three done in the next few days.Here are some photos.Mirror in crate. Still covered with protective later of plastic film. Lifting mirror out of crate. Piece of glass weighs 900 lbs. Mirror on cart. Protective film removed. Putting on coating fixture to hang mirror in vacuum chamber. Preparing to lift mirror with coating fixture. Mirror installed on vacuum chamber cover. Vacuum chamber. Optics guys doing a Ronchi test on the mirror. Read...

After finishing the crane work, we spent the past few days mostly finishing up some unexciting, random tasks that needed to be done. We filled in the holes in the observing floors created by trimming the corners off of the lift tables, finished most of the stuff I wanted to do during the last trip (dome home switches, mounting dome control electronics), relocated the lift table hydraulics controls from the trap door in the observing floor to the wall, cleaned all of the trash that the construction crews left on the ground floor of each enclosure, and gave all of the enclosures a thorough vacuu...

We completed the crane work at Site #1 early this afternoon. This was the last site to be done, so we are now done with all of the lifting.We plan to spend the afternoon moving two of our primary mirrors out of the 2m building so they can begin coating the other mirror. We expect all mirrors to be coated by the end of next week.Ruben and his crew are back and they have been working to wrap up the enclosure construction. The main things they need to finish are the installations of the observing chamber doors and the exhaust fans. They finished work at Site #2 yesterday, and are working on Site...

We installed the pedestal and fork at Site #1 this morning. We got the primary mirror cell/center section/focus housing stack loaded onto the flatbed and up to the site for installation this afternoon, but a thunderstorm came through so we covered everything with a tarp and called it a day. We will get back to work tomorrow morning.Here are a few photos of today's activities. Getting the pedestal out of the container. Getting the fork out of the container. Lifting pedestal. Lifting the fork. Pedestal and fork installed.

Today we finished all of the crane work at Site #3. We started this morning with the fork and the primary mirror cell/center section/focus housing bundle, and after lunch we lifted everything else: counterweights, Dec drive, electronics rack, trusses, and lots of boxes using a nifty cargo bag that Liliana provided. We will start on Site #1 tomorrow morning.Here are some photos. Not too many today, since most of them look like those from the work at Site #2. Lifting fork out of container and onto flatbed. Getting primary mirror cell/center section/focus housing stack out of container. At Site...

Yesterday it was misting most of the day so we did not do any crane work. Instead we continued the work on the lift table modifications. Today, however, was very sunny, so we were able to finish the crane work at Site #2.  We also had time to install the pedestal at Site #3, and weather permitting, we expect to finish most, if not all, of the crane work at that site tomorrow.We started the day by lifting the spyder ring and focus housing, after which we separated the center section from the primary mirror cell and lifted and installed it. (The mirror cell stays on the ground floor until t...

We installed the first pieces of the telescope at Site #2 today. The pedestal and fork are now in place, along with the HA and fork counterweights. The crane had another fuel line issue this morning after the installation of the pedestal, so we went and unloaded the rest of the parts from the container while the mechanic fixed the problem. While finishing the installation of the fork, the weather turned bad so we closed up the dome and headed back to the dormitory until things cleared up. We were able to install some counterweights on the fork this afternoon, as well as get the HA drive mecha...

We finished preparations for the telescope installation yesterday. All the pier holes are finished, and the domes, lift tables, and hoists are all operational. The cranes also arrived yesterday. (We are using two cranes: a large crane to do the lifting and a smaller crane with a flatbed to pull the parts from the containers and transload them to the sites.) The small crane arrived at the observatory last night, while the large crane made it as far as the park entrance since it needed to be delivered on a large flatbed trailer. This morning we began the work of transloading the telescope pedest...

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...