On Saturday we assembled the telescope corrector, cabled everything up, balanced the telescope, did a wee bit of carpentry(!), and slewed all over the sky to get a mount model with the DFM video camera. Things worked remarkably well, although there’s a lot remaining to do. We also managed to get our weather station on top of the Met building before the usual afternoon clouds and rain moved in. We were fortunate that the clouds dropped just around sunset and it cleared up for us.
Monthly Archives: May 2015
DFM telescope at HKO
Friday we lifted in the DFM telescope and very carefully assembled it. We inserted it into its center section that attaches it to the mount, inserted the field corrector, removed the mirror cell and attached the mirror, attached the mirror cell to the telescope, and called it a day. Tomorrow the Schmidt corrector goes in, we put in the camera, we balance, and if it’s clear we can align and start testing everything.
Meanwhile, Brian and Michael went over to Hawaii and managed the lift of the APM mount into the dome on Mauna Loa…
APM mount at HKO
Thursday we lifted the APM mount from its crate into the dome! Everything worked perfectly. By the end of the day the mount was wired up and we had attached the center section of the DFM mount in preparation for the lift of the telescope on Friday.
APM baseplate installed on Mauna Loa
John went over to Mauna Loa on Monday, removed the old Pathfinder telescope, and attached the new APM baseplate to the concrete pier in preparation for lifting in the mount on Friday.
Mounts are delivered!
The telescope mounts from APM have finally been delivered after a four month sea voyage from Germany. The first one on Haleakala will carry the first ATLAS telescope, and the second one on Mauna Loa will carry our faithful Pathfinder for a few months until the second ATLAS telescope is shipped.
Haleakala, then and now
The concrete slab on which the NFIRE project dome sits was poured to support the generator (or construction office?) for the Air Force AEOS telescope. Here’s a picture from the official press release out of Kirtland Air Force Base in 2002:
http://www.kirtland.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070404-028.pdf