While disconnecting the batteries yesterday, Mark shorted the terminals with an allen key. The allen key got part melted and the bolt stuck onto the end. Then the battery cables caught fire and broke the circuit. Tristan was up above at the time, and got a good fright. Nick was nearby and pretty quick about stamping out burning bits of wire. Mark burnt his finger, but otherwise everybody was unharmed. Everything was over in less than 20 seconds, and the timelapse camera caught only two images.
As far as regular business goes: the solar panels saw their first light yesterday—as Jamil tested them—and the gondola was moved to the south half of the highbay. This was it can look 100m down the road for beam maps/focus tests.
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- If you look carefully below the inner frame, you can see the red hot allen key
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- In front of Mark, you can see sparks and burning copper
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- The remains of the wires coming from the batteries
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- The cause of all the trouble
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- The burnt allen key, with bolt stuck to the end
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- Mark and Elio work on aligning the cryostat with the telescope
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- Laser dot at the center of the window is the first stage of alignment
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- Then, a reflector is added to see how the beam reflects back to the secondary
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- The Dot appearing at the middle of the laser means things are good (!)
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- Secondary Closeup. Shiny
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- Blinken Lights. The DAS is alive again
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- First light for the blast solar panels
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- Jamil tests the solar panels
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- Light makes more light
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- With different light bulb loads, he can sample the array characteristics
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- The gondola is pushed into range of the south crane
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- Nick seems to want to put the pivot up by himself
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- But it’s probably better that the crane do its job
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- Tristan, Matt, and the Mr Pivot Face
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- People hold the cable and watch carefully so that they don’t catch on anything
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- The gondola is lifted pretty high
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- And then even higher
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- Greg starts to move the gondola south
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- People scatter before the awesome power of the gondola
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- The gondola floats over the tables
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- It passes by slowly
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- And finally touches down at its new home
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- The old home is left derelict
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- In the cable tray under the new spot, there’s a big spider and a lot of dead bugs
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- Tristan climbs up to reposition the webcam, to better suit the new highbay arrangement
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- Natalie tested if her screen would survive being thrown in the air. It didn’t. Science!
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