Monday, September 17, 2012

pODI is verified

This is the last night of engineering verification, and it has been an enjoyable, if tiring activity.  For me, it has been great to learn about the WIYN telescope and its performance.  I've had seeing about 0.5 arcsec all night the last two nights, and I could easily get used to this.  Over the past weeks, we have demonstrated that pODI can do what it was designed to do.  We have yet to test OT shifting, but we'll get there.  Even without OT shifting, it makes superb images over the full field of view.  The flaws in the detectors are quite manageable, and we are making good progress with the instrument control and data systems.  Commissioning starts October 8, and I'm sure there will be a lot of interesting blog posts when we get into that.  Daniel and I will be writing up a report on engineering verification before then, and we will be taking (separate) vacations during the gap between now and when things gear up again.  I'll probably put another post up in the next few days, but I'll leave you with one more pretty picture. 

Todd

The bubble nebula - 5 minutes in r


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