GRAVITY Beam Combiner Instrument Progress


July 21, 2015

The GRAVITY Beam Combiner Instrument has Arrived in the New Integration Hall on Paranal

February 18, 2016

CIAO #1 arrived at Paranal

The first infrared wavefront sensor CIAO arrived at Paranal
October 03, 2015

The Beam Combiner Instrument installed in the VLTI lab

October 02, 2015

The Beam Combiner Instrument on its way into the VLTI laboratory

July 22, 2015

System is back in operation in the New Integration Hall at Paranal

The Installation Team

The Installation Team
July 19, 2015

Leak-testing with Gerd

July 16, 2015

Unpacking of the six electronic cabinets

July 16, 2015

Transfer of the BCI cryostat box

July 16, 2015

Unpacking of the cryostat

July 16, 2015

Movement into the New Integration Hall

July 16, 2015

Everything still there

July 15, 2015

The Beam Combiner Instrument arrived at Paranal

17 boxes / 12,5 tonnes / 74 m^3
May 21, 2015

Alignment of AT units with ESO laser tracker

With the great help of Samuel Leveque (ESO)
July 25, 2013

First fringe-tracking in lab!

July 29, 2013

First completely equipped UT: four guiding launchers/four metrology receivers/one electronic box

July 29, 2013

First cabled electronic box at UT1 (only test cabling)

July 25, 2013

First two units installed at UT1 (the small black dots on the spider ...)

July 25, 2013

Perfect Paranal support (by Eloy Fuenteseca)

July 25, 2013

First installed guiding launcher at UT1

July 25, 2013

First installed metrology receiver at UT1

July 23, 2013

First fringes in lab!

July 16, 2013

GRAVITY is sexy (Pierre Fedou, Guy Perrin (Paris), Stefan Kellner (MPE))

July 16, 2013

There are a lot of things to do (Laurent Jocou, Karine Perraut (IPAG), Michael Wiest (UoC), Guy Perrin (Paris), Stefan Gillessen, Angela Rief, Frank Eisenhauer (MPE))

July 19, 2013

Fiber Control Unit installed first time in the cryostat on its support structure, including two fiber couplers

July 15, 2013

Fiber Control Unit with polarization rotators and differential delay lines, by Paris group (removed cover)

July 12, 2013

Delivery of first IO and Fiber Control Unit

June 07, 2013

Front view of cabinet #3

February 27, 2013

Cryostat cool-down can be boring (Frank Haußmann)

July 08, 2013

Transparent Beam Combiner Instrument cryostat

June 24, 2013

Back side of cabinet #6, PLC, TMP control, gauge controller, and cryostat warm-up electronic

June 21, 2013

Installed fringe tracking spectrometer and first fiber coupler in the BCI cryostat

June 09, 2013

Liquid nitrogen refill

June 05, 2013

SAPHIRA detector integration in Fringe Tracker Spectrometer (Leander Mehrgan (ESO), Senol Yazici (UoC))

May 31, 2013

First test of the "small" pulse tube compressor from Thales

May 31, 2013

Pressure reducer to fill the pulse tube cooler with helium gas

May 29, 2013

Pulse tube cooler with installed accelerometer

May 14, 2013

BCI cryostat with calibration unit and dust cover

February 18, 2013

Electronic cabinet cooling water connection

March 06, 2013

Calibration unit chassis

March 04, 2013

Is it interesting or not?

February 27, 2013

Put the unneeded LN2 into the trash can

February 22, 2013

Cooling water distribution panel (one of two)

February 21, 2013

Installing of the pulse tube cooler inside the cryostat (Frank Haußmann, David Huber (MPE))

February 21, 2013

Pulse tube cooler feedthrough for helium gas and cooling water

February 21, 2013

BCI Cryostat liquid nitrogen and exhaust gas connections

February 20, 2013

Cryostat measurement of vacuum vessel lowering caused by vacuum

February 18, 2013

Cryostat control electronic, PLC

February 18, 2013

First integration of pulse tube cooler

February 18, 2013

PLC control panel, done by Lothar Kern (ESO)

February 18, 2013

BCI cryostat control electronic: PLC control electronic, gauge controller and TMP controller

October 09, 2012

Electronic box AT

This electronic box will be mounted on the centre piece of each AT. It host the control electronic for the four metrology receivers and the four pupil guiding launchers.
March 26, 2013

Electric cabinet water cooling controlling

September 18, 2012

Pulse tube cooler prototype

photo taken at University of Giessen
This cooler will later cool the Saphira detector to 40K at a cooling load of 2.5W.
September 18, 2012

First pulse tube cooler assembly at manufacture

September 19, 2012

Pulse tube cooler, covered with MLI

May 16, 2012

First uncontrolled cool-down at manufacture

April 11, 2012

First fit-check of vacuum vessel at manufacture

April 11, 2012

Beam Combiner Instrument cryostat, liquid nitrogen tank

Liquid nitrogen tank without MLI before integration in cryostat.
March 22, 2012

Optical bench support joint

March 22, 2012

Optical bench support

The optical bench, made in alumium, is supported by a stainless steel framework.
March 22, 2012

Optical bench support joint

March 22, 2012

Cryostat optical bench

March 05, 2012

Lower cryostat vacuum shell

November 22, 2011

Cryostat support frame weldment, uncoated

November 22, 2011

Welded cryostat vacuum shell at manufacture

January 21, 2011

Metrology injection test setup

January 21, 2011

Metrology injection test setup

July 29, 2010

Testing of the SmarAct ultrasonic actuators for the metrology injection

April 01, 2009

Cryogenic testing of the fiber positioner piezos, test cryostat

April 01, 2009

Cryogenic testing of the fiber positioner piezos, inside test cryostat

April 01, 2009

Cryogenic testing of the fiber positioner piezos, test cryostat (with Stefan Kellner, MPE)

January 01, 2009

UT4, second metrology test campaign

January 01, 2009

UT4, second metrology test campaign

January 01, 2009

Optical train quality measurement by Oliver Pfuhl, MPE

January 01, 2009

Second metrology test campaign, optical alignment (by Hendrik Bartko)

January 01, 2009

Second metrology test campaign, unpacking (by David Moch, MPE)

January 09, 2013

Electronic box AT

January 09, 2013

First guiding launcher mounted on AT spider

January 09, 2013

First metrology receiver mounted on AT spider

January 09, 2013

One AT fully equipped with four metrology receivers, four guiding launchers and electronic box

Go to Editor View