We're doing a quick trip to SALT (up yesterday, down today) to return the RSS cryostat that's been undergoing repairs in the CCD lab in Cape Town.
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| Deon couldn't resist working on his Board report in the back of the car, making Melanie & I feel car-sick just thinking about it |
& of course we're grabbing the chance to get to see how NIR's coming along!
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| The cold enclosure's rapidly filling up with cables |
It's absolutely gorgeous - the electronics rack alone is a work of art!!
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| Entropy-free zone - Sooooo Organised 😍 |
The fibre instrument feed (FIF) was on the ground for a trial fit of the new jaws. This new top stage includes the rocker mechanism that will ensure that the NIR IFU & sky fibres (that will attach in the bottom quarter of the black frame) tilt appropriately so as to remain telecentric when their separation is adjusted. The new FIF acquisition camera, with its larger chip (& hence field of view) can be seen near the upper left. The 4 pairs of HRS fibres (object & sky) mount to the middle section of this same stage assembly.
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| New FIF stage being tested |
But back to what we're actually here for... Time to pop up & clean the rear lens on the RSS camera barrel, before re-installing the cryostat. The horizontal bar is the actuator for the filter & it's been busily generating loads of fine metal particles that've collected on the nearby lens surface - eeeeuw!
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| Lots of tiny sparkly flecks all over the last lens of the RSS camera barrel |
Fortunately the particles were loose & easy to blow off with a bulb puffer, so no harm done.
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| Approximately as good as new |
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| Optical surgeon Melanie on duty |
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| There can never be enough photos of optics... |
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| Especially when they're not normally visible |
Meanwhile, down in the kitchen - Eben, Richard & Thabelo set about replacing all the corroded fittings on the cryostat.
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| Minor surgery on the kitchen counter (Thabelo really is fine, & so's the cryostat!) |
This is as good as a cryostat can look after riding the tracker for 15+ years! Which is part of why we're busy developing a whole new one!
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| Nice shiny new cryocooler connections added on-the-fly |
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| Eben, Alrin & Jonathan re-installing the RSS cryostat |
Once the detector's cooled down, the Astro Ops team will be able to take test frames to check if the problem's been fixed. They'll also use those to assess the alignment, which will likely need some iterative adjustment by Tech Ops.
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