Makin' chips, first physical parts...

I just got my first parts back from the machine shop. This bracket contraption is a mount for the ROVER for use with the HARP-B instrument. The bracket will correctly position the ROVER for use on the JCMT telescope. Is is a manual slide assembly so the rover may be easily placed into to the "optical beam".

I don't know what HARP does, something in the sub-millimeter wavelength anyway; but rover is a polarimeter. At some of us learned in physics energy waves are polarized, and travel with the with a 90deg. opposition. The polarimeter is just a fancy pair of polarized sunglasses, the active element of the polarimeter strips off one of the waves as it passes through the device, and apparently this is helpful to astronomers.