Working at Keck – Page 12

Postcard from the Summit – Operator’s Station

Keck 1 Operator's Station — The Keck 1 telescope operator’s consoles in the night during laser AO observing

Postcard from the Summit – Cleaning a Mirror

Mirror Cleaning — George cleaning a Keck mirror segment in preparation for stripping and re-coating

A Construction Cam for TMT

Not a hard job, but someone has to do it… Hanging off the weather tower again. This time all I am doing is taking pictures!

Paul and Fred from the the TMT telescope are walking the perimeter of the TMT site with a large white pole. At a few preset points they call me on the radio and I snap a couple photos. I spend the few minutes between each location just enjoying the view, or adjusting the climbing harness to find a less uncomfortable pose. At least the weather is quite nice.

TMT Site from Keck — the TMT site as seen from the Keck Observatory roof

The idea is to locate a remote camera that can be used to monitor the construction of TMT. We need to be certain that the entire site can be clearly seen by the camera before we go through the effort to install it.

The camera will most likely be mounted on the Keck weather mast. The location offers power and communications along with a secure mounting point. What we learn is good news, from the mast there is a clear view of the complete TMT building site

What remains to be done is the paperwork. First we must seek and receive approval from the Office of Mauna Kea Management. Any changes to the outside of any of the facilities must be approved before work begins. I have done this in the past whenever I modify one of the weather instruments. Usually not a major hurdle, but one that must be done right.

I have supported the TMT in a number of small ways. It will be exciting to watch the construction, we have a ringside seat at Keck!

Postcard from the Summit – Testing

Running Tests — Andrew and Issac running tests with TSIM at the Keck 2 Secondary, photo by Randy Campbell

Getting to the Summit

I wish it were this easy! Our summit crew is having way too much fun on a holiday.

At least I do not have to go up today, I am just on-call over the holiday weekend.

VLBA Aimed South

So I check the Mauna Kea webcams. The VLBA antenna? Aimed South?

NPR Segment on Keck Adaptive Optics

A nice NPR piece on Keck AO today. A decent discussion of the history and advantages of adaptive optics.

For Sharpest Views, Scope The Sky With Quick-Change Mirrors

It used to be that if astronomers wanted to get rid of the blurring effects of the atmosphere, they had to put their telescopes in space. But a technology called adaptive optics has changed all that.

Always a good thing when a system I put so much of my life into receives some good press!

AO Uranus — Uranus in two different wavelength, with and without the AO system on, credit Hammel/de Pater/Keck

Employment Opprtunity at Keck – Student Assistant Systems Administrator

W. M. Keck Observatory position announcement…

The Observatory seeks a Student Assistant to support the Computer System Administrator on a variety of computer software/hardware oriented assignments.

Looking into the optics of the Keck 2 telescope

Essential Functions:

Hardware and software data entry.
Windows computer software/hardware configuration/troubleshooting
Tape organizing.
Shipping and Receiving support.
Network Table data entry.
Assist as primary help desk for Systems Administration group.
Work effectively with coworkers and others by sharing ideas in a constructive, positive manner; listening to and objectively considering ideas and suggestions from others; keeping commitments; keeping others informed of work progress and issues; addressing problems and issues constructively to find mutually acceptable and practical solutions; and respecting the diversity of the WMKO workforce in actions, words, and deeds.
Maintain commitment to a high standard of safety, comply with all safety laws and WMKO safety policies/rules, and report actual and potential safety violations to appropriate supervisory or management personnel to further WMKO’s core value of safety.

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Postcard from the Summit – Test Leads

Sticky Worm

It began, as all these things do, with a phone call from Liz…

“It’s stuck”

“What is stuck?”

“SFP won’t move in K2AO.”

“Do not try to move it any further, I am up tomorrow for SegEx, I will go look at it.”

Into the AO Bench — Looking into the partially disassembled side of the Keck 2 AO Bench

Last time we tried to free up the SFP stage when it was stuck we carved an L shaped gouge in the cover plate. This is the hazard of optics that move under computer control. We tell the computer to move these optics under the assumption that the encoder position indication is correct, sometimes it is not. In reality there is no way to actually see where the stage is, an optical assembly moving deep within the AO optical bench. For most of the optical stages this is not a problem, if the encoder is not correct you can just reinitialize it and regain the position, the stage can not actually hit anything.

SFP is different, it can crash into the rotator if it gets lost. There is no real way to fix this issue, it has to be this way. SFP stands for Simulator Fiber Positioner, an artificial star created with a optical fiber. Placing the tip of the fiber at the telescope focus creates a bright dot of light that we can use to align and calibrate the AO system. The three axis stage can move the fiber into the light path and accurately position it just where you need it for system tests. There is also a diagonal mirror used to inject light from the telescope simulator and the spectral calibration source mounted atop the simulator.

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