These instructions tell you how to mount ULTRACAM on the NTT. They were originally written by Ed Daw following an installation in January 2011, and then updated by Vik Dhillon following installations in April 2016 and February 2019.
The day's installation work typically goes as follows - on site technical staff spend until about 10-11am removing the previous instrument (EFOSC) and mounting the white adapter cone and the black ULTRACAM mounting collar on the Nasmyth rotator. Before starting, check that the technicians have correctly lined up the various components: white labels and yellow paint marks on both parts should be lined up as shown.
Once this is done around 11am, we help the NTT staff mount ULTRACAM onto the collar. Between about 12pm and 2pm we then cable up ULTRACAM. After lunch, the technical staff balance the rotator for the new loading of ULTRACAM plus its cabling. Finally, we turn on and test the cooling and data acquisition systems, adjust the cabling to minimize CCD noise, and go to the control room to check connection via ethernet.
Be very careful to be neat and tidy in getting out and putting away the parts! Anything that goes missing, even one bolt, can really make installation very hard. Especially during deassembly, be very careful to put everything back in the correct bag, and the bags back in the correct boxes, and the boxes back in their correct locations in the crates. The packing lists should still be correct when we are ready to ship back to Sheffield or off to the next telescope. Also, cable assemblies are delicate. Do not throw, drop, or jerk cable connectors as this can cause unseen damage that can then be very hard to diagnose, wasting valuable time later.
The packing lists showing the contents of each crate can be found in these photos from Tom: packing list 1, packing list 2, packing list 3, packing list 4. Note that the numbering here does not necessarily correspond to the crate numbering given below.
There are six packing crates. Each crate has a packing list taped to the inside of the lid. Crates 1, 2 and 6 always hold the same items. Crates 3, 4 and 5 have contents that may vary. You will need to examine the packing lists and find the different components. The ULTRACAM packing crates consist of five flight cases and one wooden crate. The flight cases are all clearly marked ULTRACAM; the wooden crate has ULTRACAM written on it roughly in marker pen. Below are pictures of a typical flight case and the wooden crate.
Crate 1 is a flight case containing the electronics rack.
Crate 2 is a flight case containing the ULTRACAM canera
Crates 3 and 4 are flight cases containing small spare parts and tools
Crate 5 is a flight case containing large spare parts.
Crate 6 is a wooden crate containing the ULTRACAM mounting plate.
The crates should all be located in the NTT control room on the first floor of the dome building, as shown in the photos below. This is also a good place to set ULTRACAM up if you want to run it off the telescope, e.g. when re-aligning.
The ULTRACAM+NTT mounting collar is in its own wooden crate. The mounting collar is black painted steel. Remove the security bolts clamping it into the wooden crate and place them in the bag of bolts pictured below, to be found in the ULTRACAM bolts box.
Crane using the metal lifting eye that should be in the crate with the bracket. If you can't find the lifting eye, ask ESO for one (they do have one). See figure below.
It is important that the rotator is adjusted until the arrow on the white mounting cone lines up with the corresponding arrow on the black mounting collar. See figures below.
Locate the ULTRACAM bolts box in the crates and retrieve the bag labelled COLLAR TO NTT, shown in the figure below.
Use these bolts to fix the collar to the telescope. Note that some of the bolts in the "Collar to NTT" bag are too long to be fully screwed into the white cone - you may need to ask ESO to use their own bolts for this. Excess bolts should be kept in the bag, and the bag replaced in the box of ULTRACAM Bolts.
Crate 2 has a deep lid and a shallow base. The lid is removed upwards leaving the instrument mostly exposed. The collimator is covered by a black aluminium lens cap held on with masking tape. The lens cap should be removed temporarily and the front lens sprayed with air cleaner as shown in the figure. The air spray can be found in the optics cleaning box in the ULTRACAM crates, and must be used with great care. First shake the can. Always hold the can upright when spraying. Spray into the air first to clear any liquid propellant from the nozzle. Once the air stream is clear, spray the lens surface lightly, again always holding the can upright and avoiding jerking motions.
The lens cap should then be masking-taped back into place. Do not use GAFFER/DUCT tape on ULTRACAM parts as it leaves a sticky residue.
Craning is via three lifting straps looped around the aluminium cones and hemispheres - do not use the carbon fibre struts to lift the instrument. Care should be taken to go under the downward pointing struts so that the loop cannot slip when the load is lifted. Note also that two of the straps when looped under are much shorter than the third; these are both attached to a chain hoist (or, more recently, a seat-belt ratchet hoist) which is used to equalize the length of the three suspensions from the crane hook, so that ULTRACAM hangs with the mounting plate vertical.
Some more example photos of the sling setup:
Hoist ULTRACAM so that its mounting plate is in close proximity to the black mounting bracket. Just prior to mounting, the lens cap covering the collimator should be removed. The photo on the right shows the newer seat-belt ratchet hoist, used instead of the rather cumbersome orange-armed chain hoist.
The rotator should be adjusted so that ULTRACAM and the mounting bracket have aligned labels as shown in the figures below before they are bolted together. As a sanity check, the sticker labelled focal plane mask should line up with the focal plane mask fixture in the black mounting collar. Only the mounting plate for the focal plane mask and the large adjustment screw should be present at this stage, not the motorised linear stage.
The bolt packet labelled COLLAR TO ULTRACAM shown in an earlier figure contains bolts for attaching ULTRACAM to the black mounting collar, and also the insulating bushes for electrical isolation of ULTRACAM from the telescope. It is important that these bushes and bolts are used, and not some other bolts with no bushings. See the photo below.
Do not tighten the bolts too hard into the aluminium body of ULTRACAM or you risk stripping the threads. Once the bolts are fairly tight, but not over-tight, use the Nasmyth rotator to turn the assembly upside-down, then tighten the bolts again, particularly those which are on the bottom after rotation. Once all bolts are tight, rotate ULTRACAM back to the original position and check them again.
The figure below shows the red cable twister arm being attached. The technical staff have suitable bolts for this piece. It doesn't actually matter in what orientation the cable twister arm is mounted - see the photos below for how we oriented it.
The bag of bolts pictured below contains the circular cable clamp to be attached to the end of the red cable twister arm. These circular clamps should be opened in preparation for cable laying.
At this point, the technical staff have no further role until the cabling is finished.
The focal-plane slide is shown in the figures below, along with the two packets of bolts needed for the assembly. Note the four non-anodized countersunk bolts used to attach the slide mounting plate to the side of ULTRACAM. These bolts are in the bag labelled FOCAL PLANE MOUNTING BOLTS.
Next, the actual focal plane mask is attached to the motorised linear stage using the four bolts from the bag labelled FOCAL PLANE SLIDE BOLTS. There are arrows on the mount and the mask to ensure you use the correct set of bolt holes. The position of the focal plane mask is adjusted using the large screw - the numerical position it needs to be put in is marked with a sticker.
The focal-plane slide can become quite wobbly on its mount on the focusing stage. If this happens, you will need to loosen the bolts on one side of the focusing stage, press the side tightly against the ball bearings in the stage, and then retighten the bolts, as shown in the photo below.
Water hoses run from the chiller cold output, into the green CCD input. The other long water cooling hose returns to the chiller warm input from the outlet port on the SDSU controller. Between the input and the output, short hoses connect water cooling in the order green, red, flow sensor, blue, SDSU. Normally these hoses should already be connected, but check that this is so before using the cooling. Note that the SDSU has two cooling tubes, and that the output of one is connected to the input of the other with a short flexible hose, so that therefore the SDSU box has four ports for water hoses. The flow sensor turns off the peltier coolers if water ceases to circulate via a control box in the electronics rack.
You will need to use velcro cable ties to provide strain relief and take the weight of the pipes to prevent the quick-release connectors from snapping. Cable tie the pipes to the red cable rotator arm and loosely place them inside the the circular clamps, as shown in the photos in the next section.
NOTE: When packing up it is essential to remove the hose running between the SDSU and blue camera, as otherwise it will press against the underside of the crate when you put ULTRACAM away, thereby misaligning the blue CCD head and possibly even cracking the vacuum in the head. Also remove the short loop of hose running between the input/output of the SDSU when packing ULTRACAM away in its crate to prevent damage to the hose and/or SDSU cooling pipes. These two hoses that must be removed are now marked with yellow/black hazard tape, as shown in the photo below.
NOTE: At the NTT, you must use the 7.5m (or longer) versions of the cables listed below, not the 5m cables, as the latter will not reach the electronics rack. The 7.5m cables are all marked as such on the sticker (beware that some of the 5m versions of the cables are not always marked).
The following cables need to be run between the instrument and the electronics rack. It is best to attach them to the ULTRACAM end first so that any slack can be accommodated by looping the excess cable at the electronics rack end - loops of excess cable at the ULTRACAM end are highly undesirable:
Particular care should be taken to keep power cables away from the CCD data cables running between the SDSU and the CCD heads. From ULTRACAM all cables should pass through the two circular clamps, as shown in the photo below, such that they are not tangled or twisted. Take some care over this. Please only use velcro as cable ties to secure the cables on the instrument and red cable arm where necessary, strain relieving the electrical connections as appropriate.
Below is an image of the metal plate used to ensure that a metre of straight cable is available to take up the rotation between the ULTRACAM cable clamp and the cone clamping point.
A black plastic hose is used to connect ULTRACAM to a nitrogen gas bottle for preventing condensation on the CCD windows if the humidity is high. Connect this hose at the 3-way gas manifold located near the red CCD head on the instrument. The hose should then be run along with the other cables through the circular clamps, down to floor level and then connected to the nitrogen gas cylinder (via a simple push fit onto the open end of the flexible hose coming from the nitrogen bottle). Do not attempt to open the valve on the gas cylinder without first disconnecting the pipe at the ULTRACAM end, as otherwise it is possible to send a high-pressure spurt of nitrogen through the pipes which will blow out all of the pipe connections on ULTRACAM. Instead, hold the disconnected ULTRACAM end of the pipe up to your cheek, slowly open the nitrogen bottle valve, and regulate it until you feel a gentle flow on your cheek. Only then should you reconnect the pipe at the ULTRACAM end. However, it is highly unlikely that you will need to turn the nitrogen on at all, as the humidity in the Nasmyth room is regulated, so do not turn it on (or don't even connect up the cylinder, if you're not confident of the above precedure) unless you suspect problems with condensation. For safety, you should also disconnect the ULTRACAM end of the pipe.
The electrical cables, fibre, water pipes, and nitrogen gas pipe should all now pass through both circular clamps and then loop back inside the EFOSC cone dropping vertically to the steel EFOSC support structure. Inside the cone, make sure you have a loop of cable as shown in the photos below to provide slack for the cable twisting. Note the white cable tie attached to a bolt on the inner wall of the cone use to hold this loop of cables/pipes in place - this is essential as otherwise the loop may fall out as the rotator is turned. Note also the horizontal ~1 metre of cables/pipes running between the two circular clamps - this is essential to allow the Nasmyth rotator to rotate through its full range without destroying the cables/pipes.
Below the cone, use velcro cable ties to route the electrical/fibre, nitrogen, and water lines towards the the rack, chiller, and gas bottle respectively. Neatness is important to avoid making mistakes, damage, tripping, and to ensure any debugging that proves necessary during observing is as efficient as possible.
Finally, it may be that the technical staff wish to run cables in our loom to the rotator. During our installation on 2011/01/06, a mains cable to power the rotator electronics was routed this way. After all cables and pipes are in the loom, the circular clamps should be tightened using the two retaining bolts of either side of brackets, taking care not to damage the fibre going to the SDSU. The cable looms should be loose inside the bracket on the cone to allow free rotation of the cables when the rotator is operated.
Once all of the above is completed, ask the ESO staff to rotate the Nasmyth rotator backwards and forwards through its entire range whilst you carefully watch the cables in the clamps, ensuring that there is no snagging or dangerous stretching of the cables, and that the cable loop inside the cone stays in position.
The photographs below show the final configuration of ULTRACAM and its cables in 2016. The one at the very bottom shows the installation in 2019, where only velcro cable ties were used and no cables/pipes were attached to the red cable-twister arm (for neatness).
From April 2019 onwards, ESO replaced the EFOSC white cone with the "cube", which in a few months will be used to mount ULTRACAM permanently on the Nasmyth focus. In the meantime, we are taking ULTRACAM on and off the focus for each run, as usual. The cabling arrangement with the cube looks slightly different, as shown in the photos below, courtesy of Dave Sahman.
The electronics rack and water chiller should be located at the side of the EFOSC steel support structure facing the entry door to the Nasmyth room, as shown in the photos below. The cables and pipes running to them should be neatly arranged on the steel EFOSC support structure, running inside the structure if possible to prevent anything snagging them whilst work is going on in the Nasmyth room.
Check that the water in the chiller is filled to the indicator line - the NTT staff can give you some suitable water for this. Connect the send and return hoses at the chiller end by pushing them on. Ensure that the cold send line is connected to the green CCD input, and the hot return line is connected to the SDSU - the pipes and chiller should all be labelled to make this easy.
Make sure that the chiller water-temperature probe is immersed in the water in the reservoir by passing it through the black filler cap, and that its connector (a headphone jack and socket) is fully pushed together - it is easy to leave this connector only partially connected. Check also that the other end of the cable is connected to the control box in the shelf in the rack.
Ensure that everything in the rack is off before connecting the mains plug for the rack to the mains distribution board - see below. Check again that nothing has come on.
NOTE: When removing ULTRACAM from the Nasmyth room it is essential to drain the chiller of the water in it, as algae could grow in it if left for long periods. To do this, wheel the chiller to the front door of the NTT on the ground floor and open the valve at the bottom-rear of the chiller, remembering to close it again when the water reservoir is empty (otherwise water will pour all over the observing floor when the next person comes to fill the reservoir!). You may need to tip the chiller backwards slightly to encourage the emptying of the water.
The mains UPS supply used to power the ULTRACAM electronics rack and the chiller comes from the orange/black extension reel located on the floor to the right of the Nasmyth rotator. See the figures below. The longer of the two black multi-way ULTRACAM extension cables, with a Euro-type plug and a 4-way UK mains socket, is connected to this outlet, and the cable is run along the transport rail for the EFOSC support structure, and cable tied to the support frame, as shown in the photos below. The rack and chiller should then be plugged into this 4-way socket, ensuring that all of the switches on the rack and chiller are turned off prior to connection.
The ethernet connection between the electronics rack and the main control room building near the residencia (the NOB) is via the yellow fibre (SC connectors, single mode) lying next to the mains extension reel, as shown in the photos below. Note that there are two such fibres pairs - the main one and a spare. As of Feb 2019, we are using the spare, as is clearly marked with a sticker, and the main one is disconnected. Carefully store the end caps in the bag in the fibres box and ensure the fibre ends are kept as clean as possible. Run this fibre alongside the mains cable to the electronics rack and plug it into the fibre-ethernet converter located on one of the top shelves of the rack.
If the spare fibre fails, you will need to switch back to the main fibre by making the connection both at the fibre-converter end in the ULTRACAM electronics rack, and also in the cable twister room (up the ladder) on the ground floor of the NTT - see the photos below. I've attached stickers to each fibre to make clear which is which. Note that you have to ensure you get the transmit and receive fibres the correct way round in the twister room, as shown in the photo.
Striped yellow/black safety tape should be used to tape the mains cable and fibre to the floor to minimize the risk of tripping or damage. This can be found in the tapes box in the ULTRACAM crates.
The GPS antenna and cable should already be installed, but if you have to do it yourself, please follow the photographs below for a guide. All you should have to do is connect the end of the GPS cable coming into the Nasmyth room of the NTT to the vacant socket on the lightning protection unit located on one of the top shelves of the electronics rack. You may need to periodically clean the antenna with a cloth and water to remove the accumulation of condor poo!
ULTRACAM is controlled from the main control-room building, called the NOB, located next to the residencia. Everything should already be installed there - all you should need to do is power everything up. Please refer to the photographs below for the location of all of the equipment. Note that the fibre-ethernet converter shown is located in the computer room of the NOB where the fibre from the NTT Nasmyth room comes out.
Please refer to the ULTRACAM user manual for further instructions.
