Last week we finished the cabling of the DAS box and populating most of the cables in the Azimuth wrap. We pulled in Resident Astronomer’s, Telescope Operators, the full day staff and even some people from McDonald Observing support. Thanks to everyone for the hours of hard work in the freezing temperatures. With so many people working so hard we neglected to take any photos of the work but I think we may try to put something together using the dome safety cameras.

This week we are getting ready for the new tracker arrival next week. This means we need to get the upper and lower X in full working order with limit switches in place, using the encoders for active feedback and have our emergency-stop system integrated into the new Tracker hardware. In addition to this work, we will be finishing decommissioning of the MRS enclosure to make room for the first group of VIRUS spectrographs to be shipped to West Texas sometime in the next month. We will have several different contractors on site this week. One connecting our large UPS system for the tracker, and another mounting the cryogenic lines from the site of the huge liquid nitrogen tank to the inner pier.