In 2015, the pGCT, a telescope prototype planned for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) gets its first Cherenkov light in the Meudon site of the Observatoire de Paris. As a part of the small-sized telescopes of the CTA, this telescope was designed to detect showers of secondary particles produced when very high energy gamma rays and cosmic rays enter in the upper atmosphere and interact with the atmospheric gas. It is now dedicated to a test bench for Cherenkov observation and to educational purposes. Within this last framework and in order to propose to the general public an easy way to observe high energy particles, we started in 2021 the development of a Langsdorf cloud chamber based on a previous model using Peltier cells and developed for students in Tours. Cloud chambers provide a convenient way to observe signatures of charged particles related to cosmic rays since they allow a direct detection also during daytime and are easier to use for the visits by the general public to concretely illustrate the existence of these high energy particles. This paper describes mechanical and electronic designs of this cloud chamber. Some results for educational purposes are also given.
The WEAVE instrument nearing completion for the William Herschel Telescope is a fiber-fed spectrograph operating in three different modes. Two comprise deployable fibers at the prime focus for point-like objects and small integral field units (IFU), the third is a large IFU placed at the center of the field. Three distinct fiber systems support these modes and route the photons to the spectrograph located on the Nasmyth platform 33m away: the first features 960+940 fibers and is duplicated to allow configuring the fibers on one plate while observation is carried out on the other, the second has 20 hexagonal IFUs featuring 37 fibers each, the third is a large array of 609 fibers with twice the former’s diameter. The large number of fibers and the diversity of their instantiation have made procurement of the parts and assembly of the custom cables a challenge. They involve project partners in France, the UK and the Netherlands and industrial partners in France, Canada, the USA and China to combine know-how and compress the schedule by parallelizing assembly of the cables. Besides the complex management that this induces, it has called for revising the fibers’ handling to relax tolerances and for a rigorous assessment of the conformity of the products. This paper tells the story of the making of the fiber links, presents the overall organization of the procurement and assembly chains together with the inspection and testing allowing for assessing the conformance of the hardware delivered.
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