Dark Energy Instrument's Lenses See the Night Sky for the First Time

[Ptah]

On April 1, the dome of the Mayall Telescope near Tucson, Arizona, opened
to the night sky, and starlight poured through the assembly of six large lenses
that were carefully packaged and aligned for a new instrument that will launch
later this year.

Just hours later, scientists produced the first focused images with these precision
lenses – the largest is 1.1 meters in diameter – during this early test spin, marking
an important “first light” milestone for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument,
or DESI. This first batch of images homed in on the Whirlpool Galaxy to demonstrate
the quality of the new lenses.

”It was an incredible moment to see those first images on the control room monitors,”
said Connie Rockosi, who is leading this early commissioning of the DESI lenses. “A whole
lot of people have worked really hard on this, and it’s really exciting to show how much
has come together already.”

This phase of the project will continue for about six weeks and will require the efforts of
several onsite scientists and remote observers, noted Rockosi, a professor of astronomy
and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz.

https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2019/04/03/dark-energy-instruments-lenses-see-night-sky-first-time/

[lastlib]

1. So cool!

I F*cking Love Science!