CCD camera problems at FTN - UPDATE

LATEST Update, 2000 BST 24 June 2006:

After much investigation and testing, the CCD camera on FTN is not able to be fixed. Due to water contamination in the replacement coolant pipes, the camera still cannot be cooled to below freezing (normal operating temperature is -130 deg C), and so the instrument is completely unusable.

The camera has been removed from the telescope - a replacement (Apogee CCD camera) has been developed, and is the process of being tested at the LCOGT facility in Santa Barbara. However, it will be at least 14 days until this will be ready and fitted (note that this is still only a rough estimate).

As mentioned previously, the new camera is much more versatile and should be much more reliable, as it will not be reliant on the sorts of crogenic cooling systems that have caused so much trouble on FTN recently.

We apologise, once again, for the continued problems and the cancellation of ALL sessions.

UPDATE, 21st June:

Further investigation of the CCD camera problems at FTN suggests that it will be out of action for longer than originally anticipated, and is unlikely to be operational until early next week. We apologise for the continued loss of telescope access, and will let you know as soon as normal operations are resumed.

ORIGINAL STORY, 15th June:

Unfortunately, FTN has suffered a repeat of the CCD camera problems it suffered last month, with a leaking gas pipe resulting in the instrument warming up to room temperature (rather than it's usuall operating temeperature of around -180 degrees). This renders the camera unusable, and so the telescope has been shut down until the problem can be fixed.

New gas pipes arrived on Maui on Tuesday (having taken almost 3 months to be delivered by the suppliers), and will be installed as soon as possible (the weekend). The telescope will be out of action throughout the week but we hope to have it back online by Monday if everything goes to plan.

Apologies again to those users affected by the CCD problems, but the new pipes should stop this problem recurring, and a brand new camera is on order and should be available within a month. The new camera will have a larger field-of-view (~6.5 arcminutes), and will initially come with B,V,R and H alpha filters, but with the addition of a larger filter wheel in future it could have up to 11 options available.