(Left) - Abby recently gave me some pictures from a couple weeks ago of me working, since I dont have many pictures of me on the blog, I include them.  This was from ~2 weeks ago when we were closing up the cryostat, I was putting in some final screws to a filter in front of the lens in the receiver.  The cone that I'm reaching down into mates onto the big white optics cryostat, and the cones define the path of the light to the detectors from the telescope.  (Right) - Me analyzing some data on the 2nd floor of DSL, Abby said she had never seen me so happy!

(Left) - Abby working on moutning the coupling lens, which couples light from the detectors into the Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), which is the big metal thing on the left.  We use the FTS to measure the spectral response of our detectors, or how senstive they are to different colors of light. (Right) - A picture of Liz from last year doing the same thing, but this picture actually shows the innards of the FTS.  Its very complicated in there, and I only expect experts, or me sometime in the future, being interested in the details of whats what, but its pretty interesting in its complexity.

(Left) - Abby re-adjusting the flat mirror on top of the receiver.  We use the flat mirror to couple light to the detectors when we're doing on the ground tests.  Only the sky is "cold" enough for us to look at, otherwise the detectors are so sensitive they saturate.  (Right) - At the beginning of this week we had a near whiteout.  This day was the worse.  Normally you should be able to see the telescope looking in this direction.  Luckily we at least have the flags to follow.

(Left) - Re-lifting the receiver back up in the telescope.  Notice Liz standing on the cryostats.  (Right) - Perched from my usual position during the receiver lift.  Liz mounting the cryo-cooling lines to the optics cryostat (the white thing).

 (Left) -  Another long task associated with re-lifting the cryostats, is re-cabling all the readout electronics for the receiver.  All those cables and electronics were also on the ground for our on the ground detector testing, and we have to hoist them all up there.  While it is tedious, its not too terrible at least, the connectors are all well labelled on what goes where (Right) - Professor John Ruhl has been taking alot of cat-naps when he's not too busy, mainly because he hasnt been sleeping well here, and also because there are lulls when we dont need everybody.  He'll usually make a makeshift bed from the window covers, and lie down on the floor somewhere.  I just woke him up when I took this picture (I was in the receiver cabin at the time, about 10 ft above him, hence the viewpoint. 

Sorry for not blogging for a while!  After Thanksgiving, things have gotten really busy at the telescope and I havent had much time.  Worse yet, I found my camera, but in the process of taking pictures at
the telescope (the day after I found it), I dropped it on floor and it broke :(  I still have my iphone, so I can take pictures with that.   Above are some more pictures, satellite is going down soon, so I'll have to blog more later!  Anyway, tests are going well, and we're on schedule so far.