When I arrived at Cerro Pachón yesterday, I was dropped off at the hotel, where I put my things in the room and met up with Percy, Steven, and Eduardo. At 6:30, we headed up to the restaurant for dinner. It felt a bit unusual because at that time last July, Sue and I would already be starting observations for the night. We had lomo a lo pobre for dinner and mystery cake and “pink” made up our dessert. We didn’t know what flavors the desserts were, but I remember deciding to simply call the latter “pink” with Sue last July, too.
After dinner, we headed up for my first encounter with Gemini. I’ll start by saying everything about it is impressive. That being said, I’ll let the photos speak for themselves:
After everything got set up with the telescope, we settled in for a night in the control room. Percy had Steven show me the ropes for reducing spectra, so Steven and I worked on that until about 5:30 am, when we got too tired to think. When Percy and I left the building and saw that the sun was about to rise, we knew it was time to go to sleep. I wound up getting to bed at 7:30 am.
¡Send me to Chile! 
Jan 29, 2011 @ 21:31:52
Is the second picture showing the mirror?? Exposed? I’m surprised. I would think it would need to be in an ultra-clean area to keep dust from it.
Jan 30, 2011 @ 01:03:25
Well, it’s got to be uncovered for us to see the stars! Just kidding, you make a good point. In that picture, if you look to the righthand edge of the mirror, you’ll see a black strip. That’s the folded up cover. The best way I could describe it is “accordion-style.” I was able to snap the picture right after it was retracted.
Great care is taken to protect the mirror. The cover stays on until the dome is completely open, just in case any debris could fall. And if humidity reaches a certain point, they immediately close up everything to protect the mirror from even getting dew on it. Good catch!
Jan 30, 2011 @ 23:09:41
Obviously, my mental model of a telescope was a completely sealed one (even at the end pointed toward the sky) to keep EVERYTHING as pristine and dust free as possible. I suppose the translucent material at the sky end of the scope would have to be VERY clear so as not to distort any of the light rays coming in, and that would add additional complexity. Ah, the joys of engineering design!!!!