November Progress Update

After last months brief period of observations we are sorry to report that the ART is still unable to perform autonomous observations due to continuing hardware faults.

An Example of the Usual Maintainence Insanity

It's hard to get across just how hard it is to maintain the BRT and keep it running smoothly. The system is so immensely complex that when something starts acting funny, its almost impossible to work out what's gone wrong. I'd like to share what we did today to try and diagnose a big problem with the telescope.

Cleaning Telescope Optics

One of the challenges associated with operating a telescope in an area which is both incredibly dry and desert-like (under the normal baking sun), but also with the potential to be very damp (when the site is inside a cloud) is that there is a combination of dust and condensation, which covers the correction plate of the telescope in a thick layer of dirt. This needs to be cleaned off regularly.

Service trip begins

Today was the first day on site for the summer service trip and also my first time at the observatory.