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Yesterday we were going to push to be taken outside to the wooden pad (aka the dance floor, but that doesn’t fit my alliterative title) to do sensor alignment calibrations. But it was too windy, so instead we did a thorough job of all the prep work that we were going to rush through. At […] Yesterday we attached the fully mylarized Side Scoop of Joy to the gondola. The scoop is light, but huge. So, attaching it required all the space we had in the highbay. If you’re curious, its joyousness is primarily due to contrast with the absurdly ginormous Wall of Doom, which it replaced. Yesterday was also […] When the science grind starts to get you down, little bits of awesomeness do a great job of cheering you up. At least it works for me. Yesterday I discovered some snow sculptures, and Barth put out some Christmas decorations. Yesterday was the day after our LDB sleepover party. I was exhausted but still managed to help finally make beam maps. It only took a week of waiting and bug fixing. They don’t look great, but they’re done. And since the test isn’t perfect, some things that look bad may not be real. We hope […] Because the start of our acceptable launch window is rapidly approaching (starting on maybe the 18th of December), we were not willing to give up on work yesterday. But, it was still windy, and the previous day had thrown some serious snow drifts up on the road. We could not go out in the morning, […] Yesterday there was an explosion in the computer box. Well, not so much an explosion as a popping, smoking, and ceasing to work. And everyone knows, once the magic black smoke escapes from electronics, you can never put it all back in to make things work again. (This situation is why I didn’t make a […] Two days ago we were investigating what had caused alignment problems during our last attempt at making beam maps. This investigation lead to the discovery that our secondary mirror is offset about 3mm below where it should be. That may not sound like a lot, but it really makes a difference to our sensitive optical […] One week ago, Laura was kind enough of to sign me up for a trip out to the ice caves (and the trip has since closed, due to the sea ice becoming too melty for the rest of the season). Ludo had signed up Juan, and Annamarie and Stef had independently signed themselves up too. […] Yesterday we went back outside to try taking beam maps again. In the morning, I wanted to test code before everything got set up. Then when BLAST was outside after lunch, we encountered alignment problems between the telescope and alignment laser. Then the weather showed up about 9 hours earlier than had been predicted just […] Yesterday, after some aggressive treatment, our noise problems went into remission. Turns out the fix was some preamp board modifications we wanted to do from the beginning, but had decided didn’t work, so never completed. Isn’t that always the way. On a sadder note, yesterday was Juan’s last official day. Delays are not uncommon, but […] |
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