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April 16, 2009 The telescope will be used to find planets April 21, 2009 |
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April 23, 2009
Hi,
The telescope was installed in the dome today.
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April 16, 2009
Installation of the APF telescope in its dome
is proceeding this month.The telescope will be used to find planets
circling distant stars by detecting small
repeating Doppler shift of their light.April 21, 2009
Lotus reports that the APF is scheduled to be
installed this morning (Tuesday) starting at 7AM.
Keep an eye on the Hamcam 2 and the APF cam
for live images:
http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/hamcam/
http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/apfcam/April 23, 2009
Hi,
The telescope was installed in the dome today.
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| APF Dome near completion State Route 130 is to the right.  Drawings from the Lick Observatory website show the arraingement of the APF Telescope. |
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| The dome has 'over the top' viewing doors
allowing viewing at various angles above the horizon with less exposure to outside conditions. |
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| Rather than using slip rings the power and
phone cable conduits are wrapped around the dome base as if a flat watch spring. |
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| In this multi frame image we are riding on the
dome. Below is the concrete base for the telescope. The base is anchored as if part of the Mountain. |
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| The largest part of the telescope, its base,
arrived Monday, April 23, 2009. The truck was parked on route 130 and the base which sits on the concrete base was lifted into the dome. |
| Coating the Primary |
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| The polished and figured 94 inch primary
mirror. The glass is of a type that will not expand and contract with temperature. |
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| Preparation of the vacuum tank. The back of the mirror is convex. |
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| First view of the coated primary. |
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| Shown is a schematic of a smaller coater of
similar design with mechanical pumps backing an oil diffusion pump. |
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| This coating machine was built for
coating the 120 inch mirror of the Shane telescope and has coated many large mirrors over the years. |
APF tour in Fall, 2009
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| APF first floor Concrete pedestal is at left. The center ring of floor is hanging from the second floor and rotates with the dome. The stationary outer building wall is at right. |
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| Standing on the outer first floor. Steps to the second floor hang from the rotating second floor. |
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| Dome drive |
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| Pedestal / Telescope interface |
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| Mirror Cell |
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| Secondary Mirror |
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| Mirror Cover |
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| As yet unprotected edge gap below cover and above mirror. |
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| The third mirror reflects light
through the altitude axis. In this picture the camera was held at the bottom of the gap, see picture above. |
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| Future location for the precision APF Eschell Spectrograph. ( Spectrograph was at UC Santa Cruz for 'final' testing. ) |
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| Dome ( second floor ) and telescope rotate in a sort of close but separate dance. |
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| Computers are never wrong, but just in case these limit switches are backup. |
The Shane 120 inch Telescope and its mirror coating equipment
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| Shown is the Shane 120 inch telescope. The guide star sodium laser is the long black box on the lower side of the telescope. The declination bearing is in the foreground. |
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| Shown is the mirror cell and adaptive optics
assembly which works with the laser to sharpen star images. Also in the same assembly is the high sensitivity 'low resolution' spectrograph. The high resolution spectrograph is at the Coude focus in the basement, below the end of the 'right ascension' axis. This assembly just clears the edge of the telescope mirror elevator seen at the lower right. |
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| Below the main deck is the mirror coating vacuum
tank. The 120 inch mirror is re-coated here. The 30 inch Fremont Peak telescope mirror has also been re-coated here. |
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| The tripod for the 120 inch telescope is at left. |
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| The mechanical vacuum pump or 'fore pump'. |
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| Roots 'blower' and diffusion pumps. |
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| Shown is the tunnel where the 120 inch mirror was tested
during mirror figuring. At the the other end of the tunnel, two floors below the dome can be seen the grinding/polishing machine with the prime focus cage resting on top of it. The prime focus cage is only needed during collimation. |
The Crossley Telescope and the Main Building
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| Outside the
Crossley Telescope looking east.
History of the Crossley Telescope on UTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os0WJq43dHc |
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| Shown are the new video displays in the Main Building. Subjects include history, various astronomical topics and ongoing work at Keck and Lick Observatories. There is also a visitors gallery at the Shane 3 meter telescope with additional movies. Visitors that arrive after 3 or 4 PM often miss that area due to the 5 PM closing time. Online visitor information is available at: http://www.ucolick.org/public/index.html |
http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/techdocs/MH_weather/