There are now some pictures available on storm.fnal.gov. You will find them via anon FTP in the directory pub/star.
I am starting to put together the basic pieces. I assembled two triplets on a mount with double sided scotch tape. This is shown in mark23a.gif. I have started to glue together one of the vacuum enclosures. Six views are available in the remaining pictures.
Click here to see triplet assembly.
This is the assembly that I plan to run at the "Canterbury Woods Observatory". It contains two triplets with the top triplet using the Sony linear chips with 50mm f/1.4 lenses. This set will take three 30 degree wide sweeps of the sky and will have 1 minute pixels. The three measurements are spaced by 15 degrees (one hour) in RA. We expect sensitivity to be mag 10-11 without a filter.
The lower triplet uses the KAF-0400 and 135mm f/2.8 lenses. This triplet will scan approximately 3 degrees of sky with 14 second pixels. We will use filters with this set and expect a sensitivity of mag 14-15.
The lenses are glued to a ring which is screwed to the vacuum holding tube. This tube is made from a piece or 3" diameter aluminum tubing which is glued to the water cooling plate. The plate sits on a pivot which allows rotation. Not shown are all the water cooling tubes.
Each vacuum tube will have a rotation adjustment (not yet installed) and the whole assembly is on a pivot to allow pointing it due south.
The whole mess will collect about 28 Mb of data an hour.
Click here to see side view of CCD assembly.
This is a view of the water cooled plate and the TEC assembly. The cooling plate is machined from a 3"x3"x1/2" aluminum plate. A 20 pin header is glued in a slot cut in the plate. In front of the header can be seen the hole for the vacuum fitting. Behind the connector the first stage TEC can be seen below the "T" shaped cold finger. On top of the cold finger the second stage TEC is not very visible below the KAF-0400 which is just sitting there for this picture. Later it will be mounted in a printed circuit board. In the background can be seen the vacuum enclosure.
Click here to see end view of CCD assembly.
This is a better view of the cooling fittings and the shape of the cold finger. The cooling is provided by holes drilled through the plate. The hole diameter is most of the plate thickness so the cooling water is very close to the TEC. I estimate about 0.15 C per watt temperature rise.
Click here to see side view of TEC assembly.
This is a little better view of the TEC positions. The assembly is glued together with thermal conducting epoxy. Holes in the top of the "T" shaped cold finger allow screwing the KAF-0400 down with thermal grease. I will probably glue the Sony chips down. Pins in the bottom of the "T" and the cold plate allow rotational alignment.
Click here to see top view of TEC assembly.
This shows the top TEC and a little better view of the cooling plate holes.
Click here to see top of vaccuum tube.
This looks into the top of the vacuum tube. The connector is visible, as is the ledge in the vacuum tube where the window plate sits with an "O" ring seal. Also visible are the four mounting holes for the plate with the glued on lens.
Click here to see view of camera head.
This is a good view of the whole camera head. It is approximately 3"x3"x3".
