---+ McGill's APEX-SZ Spring 2007 Deployment Blog

Chronicles of the deployment and commissioning of the APEX-SZ instrument: a state of the art microwave camera that is designed to find clusters of galaxies with a world-class 12m telescope on the Atacama Plateau in northern Chile.

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March 7, 2007

My first day at high altitude went pretty smoothly. It takes about an hour to drive from San Pedro to the telescope site at Chajnantor. We ascend over 7,500ft and arrive at the site at 16,700ft, definitely the highest altitude I've experienced outside an airplane. Any time we do tasks requiring concentration or physical exertion, we wear oxygen lines that feed us pure O2 every couple of breaths. I was pretty grateful for the O2, even with it my 2 hours at the site left me exhausted. Everything I do at altitude is extremely slow and deliberate and without the O2 I can feel myself getting tired and stupid. We found out that the instrument, shipped last week, is slightly delayed in Chilean customs and will arrive on Friday.We're anxious for it to get here so we can check if everything shipped safely and so we can start assembling it and installing it in the telescope. We hope to be installed by Sunday.

March 6, 2007

After a 28 hour trip, I finally arrived in San Pedro de Atacama. The multi-leg trip started at 6pm in Montreal. I flew to Miami and had a 2 hour layover. Another eight hours on the plane and I arrived in Santiago at 9:30am. I was immediately hit up for $132 USD "reciprocity fee" which is apparently what Canadians have to pay to enter Chile. Dan and Jared arrived from Dallas about 10 minutes after I did and we met each other in the customs line. We had until 3pm, when our flight to Calama left, so we bartered a ride into Santiago and had lunch. Santiago is a really pretty city, very European. Amazing seafood. Our flight to Calama was only 2 hours, we arrived just before 6pm. Dan and I spent the next hour trying to rent a 4x4 truck capable of making it to the telescope site. Finally, truck in possession, we drove for an hour to San Pedro and arrived exhausted at the ESO base. Up to the telescope tomorrow.

March 5, 2007

Dan and Jared are leaving from California today, I'm leaving from Montreal. If all goes well, we'll meet up Tuesday morning in Santiago after flying all night. We spend six hours in Santiago before we all catch a late afternoon flight from Santiago to Calama, a small city in northern Chile.

Feb 28, 2007

The camera is packed and ready to go. It starts its week-long journey to Northern Chile today.

-- TrevorLanting - 04 Mar 2007

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