Another eventful day here at Las Campanas. Some more of the team arrived: Richard Sosa from Steward, Tyson Hare from Carnegie (Pasadena) and Mario Andrighettoni and Frederico Piccin from Microgate (Bolzano Italy). We unpacked the flipping bench, and even more exciting was the first mounting of our 4 electronics boxes on the NAS ring. This also led to our first glitch. After dinner we started unpacking the ASM unit itself. As usual, here are some pictures of all the fun:
So we had our first glitch today. After mounting the VisAO box on the NAS, we noticed that a box bolted to the side (part of its liquid cooling system) would prevent the NAS from rotating to the vertical while on the transport cart. Even though this is only a problem when the system is off the telescope, we still need to fix it. The fix sounds simple: get a smaller box. As usual, it ain’t that easy. Removing the box meant almost completely gutting the VisAO electronics box. Fun.
At the end of the day, VisAO is all back together and working. We’ll mount it on the NAS tomorrow as soon as we get a chance. We also powered up the “Little Joe” CCD controllers today, and verified that they survived the trip. Things continue to go well.
