Everything went wrong today! I was trying to observe for the Parkes pulsar timing array project using 3 backend systems (the DFB1, DFB2 and CPSR2). Initially everything started off smoothly, but the signal from the DFB2 seemed rather noisy. This was tracked down to some incorrect wiring. Okay, not a problem. Then the DFB1 stopped working. I phoned the director of Parkes (who was on holiday - today is a public holiday) who suggested switching the system on and off. Unfortunately this caused a power surge which caused the circuit breakers to jump. Now, I had managed to switch off the power to all our observing systems. It took about 1.5 hours, climbing on ladders, pressing buttons, moving cables etc. to get all the power back on. I observed for about 20 minutes before the wind arrived. We had 60km/hr winds for about 6 hours! During that time David and I managed to fix a problem with the calibration source that had been bugging us for ages. During this time John "fixed" the telescope control software. Finally the wind died down, but then neither the control software, nor CPSR2 was working.
I've left David and Ramesh to sort it all out and will hopefully come back at 4am to find that everything has been fixed!
In the meantime I decided that I wouldn't be able to concentrate on any difficult work and therefore updated my work web site instead (click here). What do you think? Any suggestions?
3 comments:
Sounds like that film!
The photos heading each page of your website are excellent, but there should also be a photo of YOU on the home page, so that people will be able to think, "Oh yes, him." On the Publications page the title is a bit obscured by all those trees; perhaps a differently coloured font would work. What a lot of food is being consumed on your Photographs page! Anyone would think you did nothing but eat at these reunions. I like the way the cursor gives you captions, here.
Pleased to see you have a link to my pulsar page !
Nice photo of you.
Where is the photo of your best friend and sister Miri?
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