Blog

We finished assembling the main telescope structures and installing all of the cables this morning. We are now ready to start the installation of the mirrors in each of the telescopes.Here is the telescope structure at Site #1 after completion this morning.

Here is some drone footage showing the TAOS II sites.Aerial view of SPM at sunset. The TAOS II sites are in the distance. Here is a drone video of the TAOS II sites. Your browser does not support the video tag. Thanks to Eduardo Lopez for the photo and video.

Today we did a dry run of the primary mirror cell installation. With no mirror installed, we brought the mirror cell up to the observing floor and installed it on the bottom of the telescope. We then removed it and lowered it back down to the ground floor. The test was successful, and it was a useful exercise since we now have a better idea of what we will be doing when we do the installation for real.Here are a couple photos.Mirror cell ready for lifting. On its way up. Up through the hatch. Gantry crane rolled over to the lift table. Mirror cell set down on the lift table. Lifted up to...

Today we worked on getting the telescope and mirror cell at Site #2 ready for installation of the mirrors. We also got the focus system powered up and working with the TCS. We got the trusses, focus ring, and mirror doors installed, and we also got the spreader bar and spacers ready for the primary mirror cell. Tomorrow we plan to test the mirror doors and adjust the limit switches, and to get the focus housing cables installed on the tube assembly (currently the cables are connected directly to the focus housing on the stand on the observing floor). We also need to drill out the holes on the...

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...

The construction crew has been working to wrap up the final work on the enclosures. All of the doors have been installed, as well as the exhaust fans. This will help seal up the building,  something we found needs to be done as well as we can after Lidia blew through.Here is a photo of the exhaust fan installation at Site #1. Meanwhile, the electrical crew is back to install a robust grounding system at the three telescope sites. Here is the crew working at Site #1.

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.