Baffle lamps

There was a potentially severe problem with the calibration lamp unit for NOTCam spectroscopy attached to the mirror cover at the top of the sky baffle. One of the lamps had broken and it was replaced. Shortly afterwards the lamp again did not work, and it was found that the assembly holding the baffle lamps was jammed between the mirror cover and the M1 baffle, actually preventing the cover fully closing. We believe this problem explains a jam of the FIES calibration arm in the adapter where I small piece of glass was found in the mechanism, and a large amount of ``dust'' being found on the ALFOSC folding prism. The problem was caused by the particular design and the lack of a well defined way with clear instructions on how a lamp should be replaced. The mounting was repaired and spare lamps installed, but a proper design for the lamp unit will be made, with special attention to how lamps can be replaced and with clear instructions and or indications on how a lamp should be replaced.

An other issue related to the baffle lamp unit was that the specific status of the lamps (on or off) was only provided in the TCS. This had the potential of the lamps being on without the observer being aware of this. A status display was made and added to the observing systems for the different instruments.

Thomas Augusteijn 2013-05-10