The delayed 2015 summer maintenance trip has started today. Our focus on this trip will be to repair the faulty focuser on the galaxy camera.
Our initial investigations today have revealed that a fault with the wiring running through the mount has caused the focuser unit to fail. We have run tests with cables bypassing the mount wiring and found that the focus position changes correctly, however even with replacement wiring the temperature sensor is not responding.
We have separately tested the temperature sensor and verified its operation, leading us to believe that there is a fault with the temperature sensor input on the focuser control unit.
We are currently working on a number of solutions to this problem.. but we'll tell you about them later. For now I can say that we're in the process of replacing the faulty wiring and are hoping to re-grease the mount (a part of the regular summer maintenance work) tomorrow. If all goes to plan we will be realigning the system in a few days time, allowing us to return to operation with the cluster and constellation cameras as we work to complete the repairs on the galaxy focuser unit.
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