Last night was quite a misadventure for us. First, we lost the autoguiding computer that keeps the telescope pointed at its target. The able engineers here tackled it for over 2 hours, we finally decided to guide by hand… tedious, but possible. Then the fiber controller on our multifiber spectrograph flaked out. Another 3 hours lost in attempts to remedy that. In a 10 hour night, we only had about 4 hours on sources. Oh, and in the last hour or so, something I hadn’t seen at CTIO during my last run happen, high cirrus clouds came in. Blech.
Tonight is starting off better. The clouds dispersed (mostly). The autoguider is working. And while we lost about 45 minutes to fiber issues, it looks like those may be vanquished as well. Hopefully the telescope gremlins that were working against us last night will be gone tonight. We are on our first 50 minute exposure, so I am going to bang out this post quickly.
Here’s some more pictures I have taken around here during the few hours of daytime I have been awake.
This is the telescope we are using, the 4-meter Blanco telescope on Cerro Tololo. This is a stitched image composed of 6 single frames. Because I was relatively close to the telescope, there is a distortion here similar to a fisheye lens image. To get a sense of scale, notice the double doors to the lower right hand side of the telescope itself.
This is an image of the other telescopes on the peak of Cerro Tololo shot from the catwalk around the 4-meter. From left to right the larger domes contain the 60-inch (1.5 meter), 36-inch (0.9 meter), the Yale 1-meter (which I used in April 2006), and the Michigan Schmidt Telescope. There are a few smaller telescopes in the background. About 50 miles behind the telescopes is the La Silla observatory (not visible in this picture).
There were some clouds here earlier today. This is the view from the peak of Cerro Tololo towards Cerro Pachon, which the rightmost mountain in this image. On its peak you can see (as small dots in the thumbnail) the SOAR telescope on the left and the large Gemini South 8-meter telescope on the right. I love the clouds in the background rolling over clouds, towards Argentina.
This is another 180 degree panorama shot from a bit up the hill from the dormitories. It shows Cerro Tololo on the right and on the left, appearing more distant than it really is, Cerro Pachon. If you squint, you might see the Gemini South 8-meter in this image.
Finally, another 180 degree panorama of the western horizon as seen from my dorm room right around sunset tonight. Those pink clouds, illuminated by the setting sun, are over Argentina. They form over those mountains to the west of us, Cerro Tololo rarely sees puffy clouds like those, it rarely sees clouds (except in the winter), and when it does see clouds, they are high cirrus as shown in the picture above.
