27 May In goes the collimator + test integration cable!

The team’s making excellent progress in getting the instrument integrated within the thermal enclosure.  Today they got the collimator optics installed…

Collimator lens barrel attached

Here you can see where the pseudo-slit will attach to the collimator optics.

Entrance slit on the collimator

The test integration cable (aka the TIC) was routed through the enclosure wall & attached to the collimator.

Test integration cable (TIC) in place

The light feed system was also set up on an ad hoc lab bench (that closely resembles a particle board box!). The light source on the left feeds a liquid light guide that plugs into the gold-coloured integrating sphere before entering the TIC.

Light feed for the TIC

They also took a test image with the detector still warm to confirm that it’s alive & well.  Noisy of course, but fine – so then the cooling was started & it should get down to temperature sometime tomorrow.