30 May Our first look inside!
Posted at 17:10h
in SALT Happenings!
The instrument was cold (at -40C) when Melanie & I got here on Sunday evening. After a focus sequence to establish how much detector tilt is needed, the team decided to warm everything up over night, in order to make the mechanical adjustments the next day. That meant that we could get inside the enclosure & see the fully assembled instrument on Monday afternoon! Words can’t really do it justice, so here’s a bunch of photos instead…
The optics are truly spectacular – kicking out much of the visible light
& the last lens of the collimator
The fibres enter the collimator on the right, the grating is near the middle of this view & the camera is to the left. The camera assembly articulates on the curved rail in the foreground.
It takes a fairly wide angle to get the whole lot in!
Funky views everywhere you look
The test integration cable (TIC) plugging into the collimator
The TIC represents the full extent of the final IFU, but it’s only partially populated with fibres. It has a few fibres arranged singly (to mimic the sky fibres) & others in small groups, as per the nominal spacing of the fibres in the science cable.
The 8 V-groove blocks at the left-hand end were made with the SAAO mechanical workshop’s wire-cutter
Mike gave us the grand tour & then made the detector tilt adjustments, while Kurt tuned up the orientations of the various cameras inside the enclosure.
Mike’s in there somewhere…
No – that’s not exasperation, just concentration!
With the adjustments made, & the enclosure cooling down again overnight, it was time to take in the magnificent (albeit Freezing cold) evening!