Photos from the First Day of Mirror Support Engineering

Here are a few photos from yesterday, the first day of engineering on the Hale Telescope's mirror supports.

Tasks for the first day included removal of the Cassegrain cage. Here is the Cassegrain cage after it was removed. No longer hanging from the telescope it is now sitting on the observing floor.


Here is some of the Palomar Observatory crew installing work lights on the telescope itself (left) and removing the rotating ring (center) from the telescope's mirror cell.

The wide shot below gives a better sense of the perspective of the people relative to the telescope.

Finally (for now) here is a photo taken from under the telescope looking directly up at the mirror cell and the 36 mirror supports. You'll see this photo again as I attempt to explain exactly how the mirror supports work and what work is being done as a part of this engineering run.