Congratulations to the Harvard NCAA men’s basketball team, who today upset #3 New Mexico (as the #14 seed – wow!). This makes things in the Aux building at LCO a little interesting:
Can anyone think of a basketball metaphor for "resolution vs. field of view"? In the foreground are Harvard instruments Megacam and MMIRS, and in the back is Arizona's MagAO.
#6 Arizona and #14 Harvard square off tomorrow afternoon. Bear Down!
Cleaning day.
The Clay primary mirror got a bath this morning:
The first step is to rinse with soapy water, several times, to get as much of the dust off as possible.Not necessarily the reason the hole is there, but it sure comes in handy. Come on a mirror lab tour with me sometime and we'll talk about how you deal with not having a hole in an off-axis GMT segment.
Here is the rinse in action:
The next stage of washing is a gentle blotting with sponges. The Aluminum is on the front, and any remaining dust particles or other bits of junk could easily scratch the surface if you wipe.
The LCO crew gently sponges off the Clay 6.5m primary mirror.The bridge the crew is on moves across the mirror as they sponge.The sponging operation, rear view. So how many sponges are in this picture?
Here’s the action version:
I caught Vizzy napping at lunch today. Btw, I'm not too worried about Vizzy vis-a-vis Zorro - the fox is really small.The Magellan telescopes reflecting the last sunlight of Day -1. The next wave arives tomorrow, including the PI. If you're new here, that means we'll start using non-negative numbers.
