Done! We have made the banner much smaller in the Virtual Microscope. It is now 34 pixels height (on top), it was 114 (on the bottom). We hope this makes your dusting a better experience! We’ll do the update at 10am PDT on Tuesday, October 30th (You may see an […]
In addition to working out the details of making picokeystones for the interstellar candidates, I’ve been working out a method of extracting the high angle “off-normal” tracks in the interstellar collector. Since the collector must remain fastened to the microscope stage, it cannot be rotated in order to align the […]
Since our trip to JSC, we’ve been fine-tuning the procedure for the extraction of interstellar candidates. Today I’m testing some new “axial” code that Andrew wrote in order to compensate for slight deviations in the vertical needle’s alignment. In this new procedure, we measure the angle that the needle makes […]
Andrew and I (Dave) are at JSC in Houston this week taking test picokeystones with Ron (of NASA) from the interstellar flight spare. On Tuesday and Wednesday we made several test cuts with the needle arms extended all the way across the collector (see picture), creating the worst-case scenario in […]
Yesterday I made a test picokeystone cut that showed virtually no sign of the troublesome needle vibrations that we’ve been observing thus far. The new procedure incorporated the use of my epoxy tube needle arm as well as Andrew and Zack’s programming of the micromanipulator, which reduced the needle velocity. […]
In another attempt to reduce needle vibration in the longer needle arms, we are experimenting with tubing made from material other than metals. Today I constructed two new needle arms; one from acrylic and one from epoxy tubing. We hope that the dampening properties of plastics may reduce vibration at […]
We’ve been practicing picokeystoning with a very long arm that Dave made. Although it works, the cuts are rougher than we’d like because of vibration. The vibration has never been a problem with short arms, but very small vibrations on the needle are probably amplified because they are out on this […]