Photo catch up

This is a catch up post showing some photos during the week of photogrammetry. It feels like ancient history now, so much has happened since then, but here goes.

Brian was in charge of placing most of the targets. Not too close, and every shot needs at least 3 'coded' targets to situate the photo. The rest of the spots are the actual targets. The first round also needs an "iron cross" to define the inital coordinates, and scale bars to define the scale. The process is somewhat magical, but if you think about it hard enough, it makes sense. The whole setup costs ~$200K and requires a significant amount of training to get it perfect, but they claim better that 0.001" accuracy.






There is a photogrammetry rhythm that is followed every night. It starts with making adjustments to the secondary, then waiting until the telescope thermalizes, then riding around in the manlift and taking abotu 100 shots over about 270 degress around the telescope. Here's a photo as the sun is sinking far below the horizon. Jay is messing with something, and Brian is adjusting some panels before we start.



We foolishly operated with the doors open most of the time, to keep things cool. Marius's fly traps have been redeemed, and there is a now a disgusting rogues gallery of bugs stuck to one of the traps. The liquid trap is still empty.


At least one night was actually clear enough to see starts. Most nights were cloudy and rainy.



This is an early photo of the targets. By the end, we had many more targets so I could check the warp in the panels.


I saw the sunrise on many occations. This will probably be the first out of hundreds, so get ready.