© Elswijk & Kragt
Parts of the HARPS3 instrument being the Cassegrain unit, the Calibration cabinet and the dedicated Control and test software were designed, built and tested by the NOVA group in Dwingeloo.
The Cassegrain unit will be mounted to the telescope and contains several mechanisms to switch between various observing modes and science or calibration input sources. The Cassegrain adapter injects part of the light into the science fiber leading to the echelle spectrograph.
The Calibration cabinet contains several power supplies, computing power for feedback loops, power and network switches and optical calibration sources.
The dedicated software controls the settings and switching for all mechanisms and calibration sources and handles the feedback loop to center the spot onto the science fiber.
The Cassegrain unit, the Calibration cabinet and 2 boxes with spare parts and cables were transported and delivered to Cambridge in the second week of February. Especially the export documents took a lot of effort (thanx Brexit).
After unboxing the Cassegrain unit and the cabinet they were set up and connected in the Cambridge lab. It took some time to get used to the software but after we figured out the right mode settings for the mechanisms, we found a perfect working instrument.
System tests will be done in Cambridge this year. Later HARPS3 will be moved to the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma where it is part of the Terra Hunting Experiment.