SALTICAM goes back together

All the SALTICAM bits were unpacked, weighed & then put together this morning.  Here's the instrument box, weighing in at 41.45 kg.

& in the other corner - the cryostat, at 7.85 kg.  The whole lot, including all the electronics boxes & cables, came to just over 77 kg.

Here's the eyeball - the very impressive set of lenses that make up the front barrel.

From the other side, you can see the rear barrel of lenses & between the 2 sits the filter & shutter mechanisms.  The brass ring belongs to the auto-guider.

The pick-off for the auto-guider pokes in between the rear barrel & the cryostat.

Here's the cryostat.

Through the cryostat window you can see the 2 beautiful big pieces of silicon that make up the 4k x 4k array.

Instrument PI & cohorts bolting the cryostat in place.

That's all the hardware together, then the cables had to be sorted out.

Going into its port in the rotating structure.

A good snug fit...

Even the instrument cover goes on properly now - this all seems way too easy!

Once connected up, the various modes of the instrument could be tested.  The frame transfer mask works!

Next up - slot mode...  That looks fine too :)

Then it was time to start setting up the alignment gear.  A bar that attaches to the top of the rotating structure carries a hole with a cross-hair strung across it.

A laser's mounted below the rotating structure & shines up through a small hole in a plug that locates uniquely within the rotating structure to mark the optical axis.

You know the laser's aligned when the cross-hair produces a diffraction pattern up on the roof.

Good stuff - that's enough for today!