SWIFT Installed

The newest instrument on the Hale Telescope, Oxford's SWIFT Spectrograph, has been installed. Tonight is its first night at Palomar.

The top photo shows SWIFT on its handling cart just before it was mated to the adaptive optics instrument in the Hale Telescope's Cassegrain cage.

In the second photo the instrument has just been installed. The next step is to cable everything up and then check out the system. They have two nights for the commissioning and a couple of science nights afterward.

I took many photos of the instrument being installed. Expect a movie soon.