First Light

"First light" is what astronomers and opticians call the first time you put light through a finished instrument. In its most genuine form it is light from an actual star, but in many instances it is first simulated in a lab setting. After many months of working long hours, and many weeks of working weekends, Steve was able to put the first light through the spectrograph that he's been designing and building. When I went over to pick him up and get a glimpse of the finished instrument, I walked in and saw a bunch of guys all ooohhing and aahhing over the instrument. Everyone that Steve works with has been very impressed not only with his hard work, but also with the finished product.

Below, Steve is in the work area where he built and tested the spectrograph. The little room to the right is a "clean room" where the actual instrument sits on a special table. The 'clean' factor is key because of all the mirrors and glass surfaces in the instrument that have to stay in pristine condition.

Here is Steve inside the clean room, with the spectrograph. All the parts are placed at specific distances from each other to ensure the light travels at the correct angles.

The final product of the spectrograph is a picture made up of dots and lines that's shown on a computer screen. This is what's called a spectrum, and what the spectrograph does is similar to what happens when white light is split into the rainbow of colours by a prism. A digital camera then takes a picture of the spectrum and sends it to the computer screen. The images are analyzed and from them astronomers can tell all sorts of things about a given star, like whether there are other companion stars nearby, what the star is made of, how fast it is moving, and whether or not it might have planets around it.

So now that the spectrograph is in working condition, Steve will pack it up and drive it to the large observatory on the South Island. Steve and I will share the driving on the way down (it is about 9 hours after the 3hr ferry ride), but he will stay there until mid-April for testing and then drive back on his own. After this stint of testing, there will undoubtedly be adjustments and refinements to be done, as well as analyzing any data they get. It has been a long road, but well worth the effort when, as Steve said over the phone to me today, "it works!"