Shutdown is over. Restarting the observatory...

Every summer, during monsoon season, the observatory is shutting down to perform a mix of maintenance tasks and improvement/development work which all require the telescope to be inoperative for an extended period of time, therefore precluding any observation.With short nights and the weather in average much worse than during the rest of the year, July/August is the preferred time. 

The 2014 shutdown lasted from July 9 to August 29 and the observatory is now in restarting mode for a couple of weeks. Science will start again on September 17 (see the 14B schedule here).

On the long list of things to do during shutdown, taking care of our two primary mirrors remains a big endeavor. Every year, we realuminize one of them and wash the other. As there are no mirror covers (yet), the main mirrors are more exposed to an environment which is not very forgiving (moths, pollen, dust, ...) than at other observatories. This year, the right mirror (DX) got a new coating and the left (SX) went through a good cleaning.

Washing DX before stripping the aluminum (Jul 28)

The DX main mirror is now ready for aluminizing (Jul 29) 

Washing SX (Aug 20)

The telescope has now two clean eyes! 

The realuminizing  went went very smoothly and the coating on DX is one of the best so far. SX is clean and shiny. As the moth population is smaller than usual this summer, both should stay clean for quite some time. You can see pictures of other phases of the realuminizing process here (2013 shutdown).

Much work has been done on various subsystems of the telescope. To cite only a few: improvement of mirror ventilation and instrument cooling system, installation of new oil catchment, roof sealing, addition of flexible vacuum lines for LINC NIRVANA, maintenance and improvement of AGW (Acquisition, Guiding, and Wavefront sensing units) #1 and #2, including the addition of a tip-tilt sensor for ARGOS on AGW2 (right side),  ...   

Preparing for on-site fitting of the newly built oil pans

Oil pans are now installed under the C-rings 

Working on one of the many cooling systems on level 4 , under the telescope level of the enclosure 

The two shiny hoses hanging from the telescope structure to the enclosure wall will be used by LINC NIRVANA to  cool down their detectors.

On the instrument side, the LBCs went through their annual maintenance. LUCI1, which had been unavailable due to various issues for a good part of last semester, was brought back to life and the tests so far have not shown any problem. Work on PEPSI by the IAP team continued and we should be able to announce soon the first light from the VATT through an optical fiber laid underground between the two observatories. Stay tuned!  

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A last note: The shutdown started with a couple of heavy hailfalls, which resulted in hail clogging the water drains, immediately followed by heavy rains and water finding its way through the door seals on top of the enclosure, ending on the telescope. Damage was limited, but unfortunately, the oil used for the hydrostatic bearings on which the mount rides (both in azimuth and elevation) was contaminated by water. So, instead of moving right away to the usual shutdown activities, some of our staff had to take care of purging the whole oil system, cleaning up before replenishing it with fresh oil. Fortunately, we were able to clean the contaminated oil at base camp and to use it again.

Water on one of the mirrors after the hail storm. Not a welcome start for a shutdown, but at least the mirrors were going to be washed or realuminized!

The source of the flooding has been identified and corrective action will be taken as soon as possible.

Eleven proposals submitted for upgrades and new instruments

Eleven proposals have been submitted, answering the call for upgrades and new instruments at LBTO.

They go from technical studies to full fledged instruments, with many building on the exceptional performances of LBT's adaptive optics.

If you want to know more, you are welcome to visit this page , where you will find a summary of the proposals and the points of contact of the proposing teams. Feel free to get in touch with them if you want to know more on their project or join their collaboration.

All the proposals will be presented at the LBTO 1st Users' Meeting to be held in Tucson on March 22-25. It is still time to register!

Time is running out for new instrument proposals...

 

The deadline for the submission of proposals for upgrades or new instruments for the Large Binocular Telescope is approaching... Only a very few days left! Proposals should come at the latest on Feb 28 23:59UTC. All details for the submission are here.

Meanwhile, some PIs have sent their intent to submit a proposal. It is not too late to look at the short description of these proposals and to send a note to the PI if you are interested and want to join! You will find them here.

On to a new semester!

The night of September 24 was the first night of LBTO's 2013B observing semester.

After an intense shutdown which ended at the end of August, LBTO staff has been very busy checking out many telescope subsystems and instruments, which went through maintenance or upgrades, as well as the adaptive secondaries (especially AdSec-DX).

Thanks to a generous engineering time allocation devoted to these efforts, much was accomplished with a decent end of monsoon weather (much better than in 2011 and 202!) A good thing, as there was much to do this year before being able to go back to science!

The first night of 13B was a good night science wise with minimum glitches. A relief after the few problems encountered on instruments at the last minute, which brought some interesting moments (!) to those involved. The LBCs, LUCI1 and AO on both sides are operational. MODS1 has an issue on its red channel (likely a controller problem), which is being addressed by LBTO and the OSU team. Hopefully, MODS1 will be back soon.

The current version of the 2013B telescope schedule is available here

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We will use this blog to give news on the status of the observatory as soon as things happen. The last posts show up on the LBTO web page.

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Summer shutdown: SX primary recoating... and much more!

Monsoon season is summer shutdown time for the observatory. Don't think that not looking at the sky means nothing much happening under the LBT enclosure on Mt Graham! Much work is going on to clean, repair, maintain, or upgrade many of the components of the observatory.

Every year, one of the two 8.4m primary mirrors gets a facelift, I mean a fresh aluminum coating. This year, it is SX (the left mirror's) turn. On most telescopes, the mirror would be removed from the telescope and carried to a near-by lab to be cleaned and re-aluminized in a vacuum chamber. At LBT, the mirror stays on the telescope. The old coating is removed and the mirror washed while in its cell. The vacuum chamber, actually half of it (the bell jar) comes to the mirror and mates to its cell to form the vacuum chamber. 

The bell jar waiting in the high bay to be lifted to the telescope floor

 

The bell jar on the SX primary mirror

Once the aluminizing is done, the bell jar goes back to its storage place on the first floor of the observatory. The mirror got a new shiny coating without leaving the telescope... The whole process went very smoothly. Kudos to all involved!

 

The three SX bent gregorian focal stations  (from left, Linc-Nirvana, LBTI, and LUCI1) (top), 

and their reflection in the freshly recoated SX primary (bottom)

Done with realuminizing the SX primary mirror (on the right on this picture)

Here are some of the many activities are going on for this 2013 shutdown:

- Replacement of the hoses bringing glycol to the many chillers cooling mirrors, instruments, and their electronic cabinets. Not an easy task, as these hoses are going through the telescope azimuth cable wrap!

- Servicing the LBC's (Large Binocular Cameras)

- Adding or replacing sensors and valves in the ICS (Instrument Cooling System)

- Removing the tertiary mirrors, sending them out for recoating... and installing them back!

- Building a new stand for the 4D interferometer for the recalibration of the AdSec-DX at the end of the month...

 

Working on the filter wheel of LBCB

 

Plumbing work in progress on the instrument cooling system

 

Installing the 4D interferometer stand for AdSec-DX recalibration