lasted almost six years!” said Senior Optical
Technician Clayton Ah Hee.
While the overarching purpose of this shutdown was the coating of the primary mirror,
we took the opportunity of the closed time
to accomplish a lot of other tasks. Highlights
of the work accomplished include:
• Repair of mirror cover;
• Repairs to the A&G unit; and
• Upgrades and repairs to instruments.
The entire summit team worked exceptionally hard to accomplish everything during
this shutdown and deserve congratulations
for their remarkable work.
Andy Adamson is Gemini’s Associate Director of
Operations and can be contacted at:
[email protected]
Figure 4. (left)
A view inside of the coating chamber while
the magnetron that applies silver to the
primary mirror is in operation.
Figure 5. (top right)
The Gemini primary mirror emerges from the
coating chamber with a fresh coating of Silver.
Figure 6. (middle right)
Gemini mechanical engineer Marcel Tognetti
inspects the primary mirror shortly after it was
re-installed in the mirror cell.
October2013
GeminiFocus
18