My short three day visit to the Slooh Canary Islands Observatory, high above the clouds on Mt. Teide, draws to a close. If you don’t follow the Slooh Forums (which I’d highly recommend) you won’t necessarily know why I’m here….
A couple of weeks ago, one of the two domes at the Teide Observatory (below) suddenly stopped working and was stuck open. 
This is never a good state of affairs when Slooh’s state of the art astronomical equipment is left open to the elements! I was on holiday at the time but one of the other Slooh team members managed to get someone to close the dome for us (the Slooh Observatories are “robotic” and don’t have any on-site staff). From what they found, it sounded like the dome was terminal and unrepairable so the decision was taken to wait until the dome was replaced over the next couple of months as planned (see my previous SkyLog post here).
With the delays we’ve experienced launching the exciting new Slooh Chile Observatory, we decided a few days ago that I should visit Teide to see if a repair was possible - even if it had to held together with paper and string! It’s fortunate that we took this decision because, within 12hrs of arriving on site, I was able to cobble together a repair and get the dome operational again! Most of that time was spent diagnosing the problem - as with most things at the observatories, they are complex “machines” with all sorts of links and inter-dependent equipment, parts and systems. A methodical approach certainly rules the roost even if it takes a little longer at the start of the task - it soon pays dividends.
Once the dome was operational again, we ran in to another problem - the pointing accuracy of the main telescope had degraded substantially for no apparent reason. Even a slight nudge to this kind of equipment is sufficient to change the pointing accuracy (how well the telescopes can point to a celestial object). There’s all sorts of “magic” behind getting telescope systems to point accurately (considered a “Black Art” by some) - especially when those telescopes are unmanned and have to point to object after object without any mistakes or manual intervention (Slooh has served nearly 300,000 Missions from the Teide Observatory). Anyway, my last 12 hours on Teide are turning out to be a little busy as I’ll be working on refining the pointing up to the wire! It’ll have to be a quick drive down the twisting, turning roads from the observatory at 7,743ft altitude to sea level in the morning.
Earlier this afternoon, I completed my last checks in the domes before retreating 
back to the Residencia which is where the astronomers stay while they’re on site. We usually aim to finish these “exit” checks, and complete any configuration work on the Observatory, in time to leave a whole night of Slooh Missions before I leave the facility. This ensures that I don’t leave site without noticing that I’ve inadvertently left something in the way of the telescopes (something which a visiting engineer did to us) or otherwise “disturbed” the equipment! There’s nothing worse than checking my emails when I return to England to find a message saying “It still doesn’t work” (fortunately that’s never happened)! However, on this occasion I’ll be forced to finishing off the pointing work during my last night. Fortunately, I can do this work remotely from the Residencia so I don’t have to risk entering the domes! If I succeed, Dome 2 will join Dome 1 clocking up more amazing Slooh Missions, if not, I’ll have to work on it remotely from England which isn’t a problem.
With any luck, this will be my last visit to the Teide Observatory until I return in the near future to install the new domes and, more importantly, the new Slooh Half Metre Telescope! It’s an awesome instrument which will produce some fantastic live views of the heavens for Slooh members from the world class observatory site of Mt. Teide. I hope you join us for the first Slooh Missions using this fabulous instrument later this Summer!
Well, the view is similar to that in the above photo - so it’s time for me to start my nocturnal work! Bye for now.
Paul
PS @ 0300hrs: Later that same night…..my work on the Teide D2 pointing accuracy has cured the problem - it’s now pointing well and Live Missions started an hour ago! I can return to Blighty a happy man!
