Automated operation

The Polarbear receiver with operating bolometers ran continuously as the HTT scanned the sky all night last night. We all left it to get some sleep, but as of dawn, all systems appear to be working. As you can see from the dawn photograph, the weather was imperfect by morning. We'll have to look at the data to see how opaque the atmosphere was during the night. Jupiter will rise above an elevation angle of 20 degrees in 5 minutes, and the telescope will start observing it as soon as it does

Days 17-19, First Light!

Polarbear at HTT ready for observations

Preparing for observations

The bolometers react to elevation changes!

And there was much rejoicing.

Ready for planet observations in the daytime

Looking for Mars....

There it is!

A celebratory cup of noodles

The next day: Jupiter!

Ian and Nate working on scans

The traditional first light Apple Strudel

Days 12-16, Cooldown

The aftermath of assembling and

installing the receiver. Where's the broom?

Ziggy assembling the readout crate

Ian arrived along with Nate from UCSD

Chase and his stylish hat

Peter and Marius finished weatherproofing the electronics crate.

Mike and Steve from OVRO help reinstall the electronics

crate.

Ziggy getting his manlift driver's license

Dave working on measuring optics alignment

with a theodolite

Preparing the telescope for observations

Dave and Adrian preparing for optics alignment measurements

from inside the telescope.

Measuring the position of the primary mirror

Ziggy and Marius install the readout electronics inside

the electronics crate.

Day eleven: Mounting the Receiver

The receiver was lifted into the telescope and attached saturday

Ziggy and Bryan leak checking the receiver

The dummy receiver and hoisting system.

The A-frame holds an I-beam with trolleys

and chain hoists.

Takayuki and Dave hoisting the dummy

receiver.

Bryan and Ziggy use a coordinate-measuring machine

to measure the relation of the focal plane to tooling balls

on the outside of the cryostat.

The receiver ready for its trip to the telescope.

Adrian drives the receiver over.

Backing into the telescope area

Almost there

Rolling the receiver off the trailer.

Swing your partner, do-si-do

And under the hoist.

Pondering the rigging

Load straps and engine levelers.

Reference tooling balls on the front of the cryostat

Rigging continues

Paul shows off his safety rail

Marius mans the tag line

Peter watching the clearance on the back

Final checks

Ready for launch

And we have liftoff

Ziggy shows his double chain style

Bryan and Dave watching at the top

Bryan and Peter putting in bolts

Dave and takayuki on the other side.

Paul works on the front side of the temporary weather shield

Turbo pump on, Ziggy watching the pressure

Attaching the pulse tube cooler

Sun dropping to the horizon

Bryan, Ziggy, and Dave on the boom

Receiver in position

Hooking up the cryogenic monitoring

temporarily on the ground.

Bryan and Ziggy get the temperature logging working

Everyone watches the starting of the pulse tube cooler

We're cooling

The hoisting crew, paul, dave, peter, ziggy, Bryan, Marius, and Takayuki

Adrian swapped in for Peter.

A celebratory drink.