<\/a>The highbay <\/div>
My new home. We're on the right, but occupying the left as well<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Bagged <\/div>
The open cryostat is bagged overnight. To protect from Texas (bugs, humidity)<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Optics truss <\/div>
For one telescope. The lenses are not transparent to the human eye<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Don't mess with John's Texas Mug <\/div>
Don't.<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>SCIENCE! <\/div>
Remarkably useful signs. Sean indicates that science is over thataway<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Badass black and gold half-wave plate <\/div>
The black is a plastic anti-reflection coating. The middle is a sapphire slab<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Making things shiny <\/div>
Because shiny. And because it will prevent them from overheating in flight<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Yes, that is a camo knife <\/div>
Found in town for $5<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Jeff concentrating <\/div>
As he and sasha prepare one of the telescope inserts<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Sasha <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Johanna and Sean <\/div>
Removing on the of the half-wave plates, for mechanical modifications<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Lorenzo <\/div>
Who some might remember from BLAST-Pol. Now he's on Spider too. He works on another telescope insert<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Jamil working on motor controllers for an automatic vacuum valve <\/div>
Sadly, this is the best photo I have of him.<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Limit switches <\/div>
Inside the motorized valve case<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Barth <\/div>
Changed some resistors inside the elevation drive power box<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Science signs! <\/div>
Put to good use?<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Science <\/div>
Fueled by coffee<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Science again <\/div>
With bunny ears<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Group shot of telescope assembly <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Powder-coated Ed <\/div>
From having machined teflon parts<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>John and Johanna <\/div>
Discussing half-wave plate modifications<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Anne <\/div>
Making cables. Clearly she likes this. Maybe she should do it more often?<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Whitenizing <\/div>
Similar to making things shiny, this is thermally useful (and pretty!)<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Yes, painting is also science <\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Ziggy <\/div>
Tapes up the copper outer shell of the telescope tube. (Also the teflon slider a the top)<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>More of Ziggy taping <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Jon <\/div>
Helps Anne with cable making.<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Johanna. Half-wave plate mods <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Inserting an insert <\/div>
These were alternately inserted and removed as fit was tweaked<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Loading <\/div>
One barrel of Spider's six-shooter<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Focalplane <\/div>
This is where the magic happens. Though the detectors are concealed by an anti-reflection coating<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Lorenzo <\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>
<\/a>
<\/a>
<\/a>![\"Insert](\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7351\/9030030114_8e0983055e_n.jpg\")
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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6163"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6163"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6174,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6163\/revisions\/6174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}