Monthly Archives: June 2015

The week of June 15

Not much to report this week as we prepare for the lift of the corrector. Since the corrector is going to have all of its covers on and it may be years until we actually have this view of it again I thought I would post this picture showing the 4 elements (M2 can not be seen as it is under M5. Note the reflections of the straight support members are severely bent showing the curvature of the mirrors.

An image of the Wide Field Corrector with its covers off in the temporary clean tent in the HET loading bay.  The Wide Field Corrector will live on the tracker and takes the beam of the HET, corrects for spherical aberration and brings it to focus.

An image of the Wide Field Corrector with its covers off in the temporary clean tent in the HET loading bay. The Wide Field Corrector will live on the tracker and takes the beam of the HET, corrects for spherical aberration and brings it to focus.

The week of June 8

The WFU corrector has passed its initial tests in the clean room setup in the loading bay. This was done ahead of schedule and the corrector will be closed up and mounted on the tracker over the coming weeks. The worked involved people from Austin and the optics team and we are grateful for the long hours and careful work they did this week.

The HET Board Meeting was held on the previous week and the board was very impressed with the progress that had been made and the plans for the recommissioning. It was a great event and the board did not ask for any significant changes to the direction that the HET is going.

We continue to make progress in the testing and development of the telescope control system. We have conducted tests to implement new pointing zero points and are working on the tip and centroid tracker sphere. Having done these tests before the corrector is in place will give us a chance to look for potential problems and solutions before we even see first light.

At the end of this last week the test weight at the top of the telescope was removed and with it the CAT. This means we will have no more on-sky tests until the corrector is mounted and ready for commissioning.

The week of May 25

This was a big week for us. The Corrector optics and the Focal Plane Assembly arrives this week. Instead of the normal, mostly text blog, I thought I would just post a few pictures showing their arrival.

The Focal Plane Assembly, which will hold all of the guide probes and science fibers, arrives at the HET and is moved into the loading bay and then into the dome.

The Focal Plane Assembly, which will hold all of the guide probes and science fibers, arrives at the HET and is moved into the loading bay and then into the dome.

The Wide Field Corrector on its test stand in Arizona  just before being loaded into the transport box.

The Wide Field Corrector on its test stand in Arizona just before being loaded into the transport box.

The WFC in the transport box coming slowly up the mountain.   It had a police escort and traveled 45 mph all the way from Arizona!

The WFC in the transport box coming slowly up the mountain. It had a police escort and traveled 45 mph all the way from Arizona!

WFC arrives at the HET.   We have to get it off the truck into the loading bay without exceeding the acceleration tolerances.

WFC arrives at the HET. We have to get it off the truck into the loading bay without exceeding the acceleration tolerances.

The experts from Crane Services lift the WFC over to the mouth of the loading bay.  Then our expert sky track driver (seen earlier moving the FPA into the loading bay) moves it the rest of the way.

The experts from Crane Services lift the WFC over to the mouth of the loading bay. Then our expert sky track driver (seen earlier moving the FPA into the loading bay) moves it the rest of the way.