Commissioning - Phase 2
May 5, 2018 - John Brewer and Debra Fischer
We are seeing significant leaps in progress with each trip to the telescope. EXPRES has been locked in a vacuum enclosure for two months now, and we continue to overcome minor technical issues and work on software.
This trip, John Brewer stayed at the DCT Lodge [1] and worked on upgrades to the motor controls, data-taking GUI [2] and the guiding system. John and Natalia collected data with the Discover Channel Telescope with the light of a full moon [3] when it wasn't snowing [4]. Tilo Steinmetz (Menlo Systems in Germany) visited and improved the stability of the laser frequency comb [5]. Back at Yale we improved the quantum efficiency map of our detector and supported John by collecting the calibration data at the beginning and end of each night. The number of glitches and crashes is decreasing every night and on the final night of the run, May 5th, the observations ran smoothly!
May 5, 2018 Slideshow
About Us
The EXPRES team works on the discovery of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, or exoplanets.
EXPRES is a next generation spectrograph that aims to break the record on current measurement precision with the goal of detecting small, rocky planets - similar to Earth - orbiting nearby stars. The instrument blends high resolution and extraordinary stability to produce the highest fidelity data.
This journey began long ago; our hope is that EXPRES will help humanity to explore the unknowns in the galaxy.
