SSO News

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue8 1–30 September 2020

In the July edition of Lunations, we described the almost catastrophic failure of the Veloce fibre shaker.  The fibre shaker does a very important job. By mechanically moving and bending the fibre, it scrambles the signal in the fibre, leading to more accurate radial velocities and greater sensitivity to detecting exoplanets.

Thanks to the excellent work of AAO-MQ and SSO staff, the fibre shaker was redesigned, built, and installed in time for the Veloce run starting on August 19th. The following photo shows Kristin Fiegert (SSO) and Vlad Churliov (AAO-MQ) appropriately masked up for the installation.

However, life at an observatory is never dull. On August 9th, the main AAT UPS failed. The UPS is a critical piece of equipment. Without it, we are unable to smooth out power fluctuations from the grid and would not be able to avoid power interruptions when switching between mains and the generator and visa-versa. To avoid damaging electrical equipment, we decided to run the main SSO generator continually until we could install a new UPS. Running the generator costs $1,000 a day in fuel, so we were pleased when the new UPS system was installed on the 5th floor of the AAT building on August 28th. But it did not go without a hitch. The main generator failed at 5:30 am on August 28th, just a few hours before we could install the new UPS. C’est la vie.

Fortunately, no serious damage occurred, and we now have a new 20 kVA UPS. We plan to have a second 20 kVA UPS installed in tandem with the new one, providing the AAT with extra redundancy. SSO technical staff did a fantastic job sourcing, and installing the new UPS.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we live and work. It also has changed the way we engage with the community. Unfortunately, events such as Open Day and Science in the Pub will not be able to run in the same way as they have in previous years. Instead, we are organising a number of Virtual events. Events include, a Virtual Science in the Pub, virtual tours of the Observatory, astrophotography classes and a goose chase. For those who wish to learn more please visit the StarFest webpages.