FIRST SNOW!
Dec. 13th, 2005 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneFINAL-FREAKIN'-LY!
It's still not cold, our outdoor thermometer which is probably +/- 2 or 3 degrees says it's about 35. The clouds have been rather pendulous for the last couple of days, but it's still just not that cold. Last night I went out at 3am to get my book out of the car that I'd neglected to bring in and felt it trying to precipitate, and the observatory was shut down during Russet's first-half shift due to clouds and precipitation.
So hopefully this is the start of the winter season finally. Russet's boss said last week that we'd been 60 days without precipitation. It'll be interesting to see what the fire danger bodes a bit later, I was planning on going down to Beautiful Downtown Cloudcroft, I'll take my digital and snap some pix.
FYI, even though it may be snowing, the observatory doesn't close down. There's always computer work to be done, instruments can be calibrated off of that are known as "cal lamps", special light bulbs that emit the precise frequencies for helium and argon, and most importantly, some of the instruments for Russet's 3.5 require liquid nitrogen to be poured into them to keep them cool, this is done at least twice a day. Other instrument either (a) have a huge cylinder of liquid nitrogen that is replaced weekly or so, or (b) use electronic cryogenic cooling through a device commercially known as a Cryotiger. Unfortunately one of the instruments, DISS (dual-imaging spectrograph, a spectrograph that has two imagers -- a red and a blue) is having two problems -- there's contamination inside one of the vacuum-sealed instruments, and the blue-side's Cryotiger was having problems. They replaced a fan which had been going bad, I don't know if that'll be enough. We shall see.
Anyway, Russ is working a full night tonight -- 3pm to 7am -- and it's unlikely she'll open (even if it stops snowing, the humidity/dew point persists above operable levels) but she'll have to be there anyway.
It's still not cold, our outdoor thermometer which is probably +/- 2 or 3 degrees says it's about 35. The clouds have been rather pendulous for the last couple of days, but it's still just not that cold. Last night I went out at 3am to get my book out of the car that I'd neglected to bring in and felt it trying to precipitate, and the observatory was shut down during Russet's first-half shift due to clouds and precipitation.
So hopefully this is the start of the winter season finally. Russet's boss said last week that we'd been 60 days without precipitation. It'll be interesting to see what the fire danger bodes a bit later, I was planning on going down to Beautiful Downtown Cloudcroft, I'll take my digital and snap some pix.
FYI, even though it may be snowing, the observatory doesn't close down. There's always computer work to be done, instruments can be calibrated off of that are known as "cal lamps", special light bulbs that emit the precise frequencies for helium and argon, and most importantly, some of the instruments for Russet's 3.5 require liquid nitrogen to be poured into them to keep them cool, this is done at least twice a day. Other instrument either (a) have a huge cylinder of liquid nitrogen that is replaced weekly or so, or (b) use electronic cryogenic cooling through a device commercially known as a Cryotiger. Unfortunately one of the instruments, DISS (dual-imaging spectrograph, a spectrograph that has two imagers -- a red and a blue) is having two problems -- there's contamination inside one of the vacuum-sealed instruments, and the blue-side's Cryotiger was having problems. They replaced a fan which had been going bad, I don't know if that'll be enough. We shall see.
Anyway, Russ is working a full night tonight -- 3pm to 7am -- and it's unlikely she'll open (even if it stops snowing, the humidity/dew point persists above operable levels) but she'll have to be there anyway.
