I arrived in Palestine about a week later than the Toronto crew (professor: Barth, grad students: Javier, John, and Susan, undergrads: Bryce and Michael). They had unpacked and tested everything in the thermal vacuum chamber and were starting to set up.
I forgot to pack my camera, but I snapped a few photos on my phone. Most were for technical purposes, but a few are (maybe) of interest to people other than me. Enjoy!
John takes a look through the telescope's alignment scope
Susan fits in BIT's middle boat
This makes for slightly more convenient, if somewhat uncomfortable, alignment scoping.
New alignment motors above the secondary mirror
Will allow us to fine tune the telescope in flight, rather than having to get it right on the ground.
Telescope, in the middle boat, looks at the collimator
This uses a pinhole laser and a parabolic mirror to look like a fake star
MCC is messy!
But this is by design, since we try to concentrate all our messiness into a few boxes.
Parts of the Master Control Computer
Visible on the left among assorted cables
FPGA board, for reading our fancy new gyroscopes
I had to disassemble much of the box/computer stack to get the out to change its firmware
Solder to go!
Michael models the latest innovation in mobile soldering (and leg burning) technology.
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