"CanariCam Is In 'Da House"

Early in the morning, the control room of the Grantecan 10.4 meter telescope is filling up with excited observatory staff and astronomers. Michiel van der Hoeven, Chief of Operations at the world's largest telescope, convenes a meeting of 17 staff members plus the six members of the University of Florida team, to plan the complicated logistics of getting the CanariCam instrument and its associated electronic hardware from the laboratory up to the Nasmyth focus of the telescope. He has written "CanariCam is in 'da house!" on the message board.



Since the camera will be unhooked from its cooling unit during the transfer (and thus lose ground on maintaining a cold interior), it is imperative that the move be made as seamlessly as possible. Teams are assigned so that this can be accomplished in two hours, the length of time it took to do this last November when the camera was temporarily installed on Grantecan during "first light." "O.K.," Michiel announces, "let's rock and roll then."



A multitude of hoses, cables, interfaces, and connectors are disengaged from the camera and its cabinets, and everything is wheeled from the lab to the freight elevator to be lifted up to the telescope floor. Once there, a crane lifts CanariCam up to the platform where the telescope focus is located, and carefully bolted to the adaptor plate. Then the frame holding the electronic cabinets is hoisted and wrapped around the camera unit.





Now everything has to be reconnected, but the several staffers and Florida team quickly get matters in order, and the comforting thump of the coolhead can be heard, bringing the critical temperatures back down. One and a half hours - better than last time and a tribute to the efficiency of the Grantecan staff and the expertise of Greg Bennett, Florida's team engineer. Everyone is gratified that the camera has been successfully attached to Grantecan with minimal problems.



Watching this large group of men and women struggling to get everything performed to perfection, one is struck with awe at the fact that they are all working together, not to find more efficient killing machines or better ways of polluting our planet, but rather for the cause of pure science, expanding our knowledge of the universe we live in.

After lunch, a further group meeting plans the important task of making sure that CanariCam is perfectly aligned with the telescopic optics. This means opening the dome and moving the huge telescope during the afternoon.

In the control room, UF team members Frank Varosi and Chris Packham monitor the images coming in from the camera to evaluate the needed corrections, and communicate their findings to Charlie Telesco and Greg Bennett up at the telescope, who are making fine adjustments in the position of the camera housing at the telescope's focus.



When you are dealing with the need for sub-arc second accuracy in finding and capturing a few photons that have traveled thousands, millions and even billions of light years, you can appreciate how delicate such adjustments can get.

With the dome open during the day, and the telescope moving silently and smoothly into position, the sheer massiveness of the 10.4 meter telescope, together with its perfect balance in its mounting, can truly be appreciated.

CanariCam rests comfortably in its cradle, waiting for commissioning checkouts and a suitable target to demonstrate its powerful capabilities. Charlie Telesco and graduate student Dan Li proudly hang up a Gator banner in the control room, reminding everyone that the University of Florida is not just a 5% partner in the telescope, but also the creator of one of the first important astronomical instruments that will be used on Grantecan.



Terry Smiljanich