Last week we removed 47 of the 91 HET mirrors. See the very nice pictures posted by Coyne Gibson at http://www.flickr.com/photos/40151551@N02/sets/72157635078464196/

This week we expect to install the mirror protection net and then tarps over that net to protect the remaining mirrors in the array. After that we will start to paint the upper hex black to reduce the amount of scattered light from our future expanded pupil size.

Next week we should be removing the old PFIP.

Here is the Wide Field Upgrade Gantt Chart in a pdf format.WFU.R102

On August 12 we will start the Wide Field Upgrade for the HET. The first task will be to remove the outer ring of mirrors plus a few extras until we reach our storage capacity of 46 mirrors.