For my first full day in Palestine, I made a point of trying to photograph everybody at work. We’ve got a big group here for the next week or so.
Actually, there are roughly three groups: those assembling telescope inserts, those assembling half-wave plates and their rotators, and those doing gondola or general jobs. There are, of course, ambiguously classifiable people.
The first wave got here a week before, so I arrived to an unpacked (and already messy) lab, an assembled gondola, and telescope work well underway.
The highbay
My new home. We're on the right, but occupying the left as well
Bagged
The open cryostat is bagged overnight. To protect from Texas (bugs, humidity)
Optics truss
For one telescope. The lenses are not transparent to the human eye
Don't mess with John's Texas Mug
Don't.
SCIENCE!
Remarkably useful signs. Sean indicates that science is over thataway
Badass black and gold half-wave plate
The black is a plastic anti-reflection coating. The middle is a sapphire slab
Making things shiny
Because shiny. And because it will prevent them from overheating in flight
Yes, that is a camo knife
Found in town for $5
Jeff concentrating
As he and sasha prepare one of the telescope inserts
Sasha
Johanna and Sean
Removing on the of the half-wave plates, for mechanical modifications
Lorenzo
Who some might remember from BLAST-Pol. Now he's on Spider too. He works on another telescope insert
Jamil working on motor controllers for an automatic vacuum valve
Sadly, this is the best photo I have of him.
Limit switches
Inside the motorized valve case
Barth
Changed some resistors inside the elevation drive power box
Science signs!
Put to good use?
Science
Fueled by coffee
Science again
With bunny ears
Group shot of telescope assembly
Powder-coated Ed
From having machined teflon parts
John and Johanna
Discussing half-wave plate modifications
Anne
Making cables. Clearly she likes this. Maybe she should do it more often?
Whitenizing
Similar to making things shiny, this is thermally useful (and pretty!)
Yes, painting is also science
Ziggy
Tapes up the copper outer shell of the telescope tube. (Also the teflon slider a the top)
More of Ziggy taping
Jon
Helps Anne with cable making.
Johanna. Half-wave plate mods
Inserting an insert
These were alternately inserted and removed as fit was tweaked
Loading
One barrel of Spider's six-shooter
Focalplane
This is where the magic happens. Though the detectors are concealed by an anti-reflection coating
Lorenzo
Cleans up around the focal plane
Becky
Taping another copper sleeve.
Random cryogenics picture
The fridge, and cold finger, and lots of wires.
The fridge again
Yet another usefully shiny thing
Insert inspection
CSBF
Obligatory welcome sign
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