Tuesday, April 28, 2009

& the Cool Toy Of The Day is: Faro Arm!

James arrived today with a magic blue box... Our new Faro Arm - a portable coordinate measuring machine that'll allow us to determine the positions of all the SAC mirrors & various other essential bits to within tens of microns. A truly remarkable piece of equipment!

Meanwhile, next door in the spectrometer room, Peter M & Dave C were busy hauling SALTICAM & all its electronics out of the payload - preparing to send it back to Cape Town for its long-anticipated upgrades.

Astronomers at observatories are contractually obliged to feign dismay at the sight of a beautiful sunset, but with our telescope comprehensively out of action, we get to shamelessly relish the absolutely incredible displays Sutherland's been producing lately...

1 comment:

  1. Nice! :-)
    I think I caught the same sunset on film... err *cough*, I mean SD card... ;-)
    http://timoliverhusser.deviantart.com/art/South-African-Skies-121966157
    Also from the same night:
    http://timoliverhusser.deviantart.com/art/Monet-121966826
    One day later:
    http://timoliverhusser.deviantart.com/art/Night-Shift-121969983

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