DASI - Degree Angular Scale Interferometer
DASI is the new microwave telescope on top of MAPO. It's replacing the SPIREX telescope.
The air is very dry here because of the cold temperatures and so perfect for this kind of astronomy.
To get more scientific information got to the
DASI homepage
Spirex is gone and under the weatherport the construction
of the new mount for DASI takes place.
DASI itself is assembled in a big weatherport on the ground.
Here is the upper part of the mount.
The silver hoses are for liquid helium to cool down the
detector to avoid background noise.
The white holes will accommodate the detectors.
On Saturday Dec. 4th DASI was ready to go onto the top of MAPO.
Rolled out of the weatherport...
... it was detached from its temporary base.
The work was a joint effort of the construction workers and the
CARA people (Center for Astronomical Research Antarctica).
First a cover was put on, then the telescope followed.
Because of its enormous weight the crane had to be modified.
But finally it got closer and closer...
.. and up it went.
A few hours of adjusting followed.
The hole in the bottom will allow work to be done on the telescope basically
from inside; a very useful feature down here.
Happy faces after hours of very smooth operation.
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© copyright, 1999, Robert Schwarz. All rights reserved