Poetically, the green laser was back on today to align the exposure meter optics. Spot the long thin mirror scarily close to the Echelle!

It's a one-year anniversary today ... this time last year HARPS3 had first lab-light! We've come so far, literally (location!) and metaphorically! (Your "ghostwriter" feeling emotional 🥹)

@5350angstroms.bsky.social · last yr.

HARPS3 first light is green light (28-May-2025) :) Modal noise for some visual fun! #living-in-the-lab

Another month, another HARPS3 mission! But this time the road up the mountain is lined with the incredible blooms of Echium wildpretii ss Trichosiiphon 😍 More installation news later ...

Before installing the detector it's essential to take some time out and see the gorgeous spectrum with your own eyes. It's impossible to capture what the eye sees but this photo gives you an idea ...

Successful Echelle installation 🎉 The heart of HARPS3 is looking amazing 😍

Today's the day we install the Echelle ... <drumroll> ...

And the optical alignment continues ...

Grism. Installed! 😍🌈

Two days, two major optical components installed! 🎉 The camera objective and the large collimator.

Gluing the top set of kinematic mount points on to the Grism - done! ✅

Open sesame!

Hello HARPS3! Are you ready for some optics? OK then ... let the optical installation begin!⭐

Really enjoyed this awesome poster at #RockyWorlds4 by William Brilliant about @terrahunting.bsky.social — can’t believe we are so close to starting our hunt for Earth-like #exoplanets in our cosmic neighbourhood!! 🤩🌍🔭

This week we are hosting the @terrahunting.bsky.social science team in Oxford. Terra Hunting will use HARPS3 which is right now being installed on the Isaac Newton Telescope in La Palma to search for nearby Earth analogues. Exciting times! @oxfordphysics.bsky.social @oxoplanets.bsky.social

HARPS3 team back on site to start the installation!

René Tronsgaard@tronsgaard.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Back on my favorite island to help assemble #HARPS3 and enjoy this supreme view of the night sky from Roque de los Muchachos ✨ #LaPalma #IsaacNewtonTelescope #RoqueDeLosMuchachos #astrophotography @terrahunting.bsky.social

The Hidden Heart of #HARPS3 by Samantha Thompson has won First Prize in the 2025 Cavendish Photography Competition. ✨ HARPS3 is on its way from the Cavendish to the Isaac Newton Telescope, launching a new era in #exoplanet discovery. Find out more: buff.ly/mrk4UHH @terrahunting.bsky.social

HARPS3 has definitely arrived at the INT (and I was only slightly excited to see it!) @terrahunting.bsky.social

A dawn delivery to the Isaac Newton Telescope this morning ... HARPS3 shipping containers arrive!!!

HARPS3 arrives in the Canary Islands today! Next stop ... La Palma!

It's time for another theme song of the day! www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTrk... HARPS3 sets sail!!! See you on the other side of the sea!

Enya - Orinoco Flow (Official 4K Music Video)

YouTube video by enyatv

youtube.com

Today HARPS3 is leaving the nest and migrating south!

And the theme tune of today is ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-... It's T minus zero on the HARPS3 lab AIT! 🤯

Europe - The Final Countdown (Official Video)

YouTube video by EuropeVEVO

youtube.com

The HARPS3 science-grade CCD is installed in the detector head - hooray! Images below show the CCD after installation into the chip carrier and then afterwards when it is sealed behind the last lens/cryostat window ready for vacuum pumping (and then cooling) ...

Today's the day we switch out the engineering grade CCD with the science grade (0) CCD! << Deep breath, steady hands >>

Moving on, René Tronsgaard is presenting HARPS-3 (@terrahunting.bsky.social), the third instrument in the HARPS family, that will observe a selected number of stars every night for 10 years, from the Isaac Newton telescope in La Palma. #eprv6

Because you can never see too many rainbows, and the HARPS3 grism is just so awesome ... take a look at the HARPS3 lab through the eye of the grism

... and the picture of the grism in its holder just before installation - how beautiful is this?!

I'm running a bit behind with the news from the lab! Not long after my last post, we installed the grism (grating + prism = grism) - the HARPS3 cross-disperser which separates the high-order overlapping diffraction orders. The world looks rainbow beautiful through the grism! 😍

... last week we installed the camera objective to the underside of the custom optical table (which fits in a large vacuum vessel). The camera objective consists of a set of 6 custom lenses - 5 of which are mounted in the barrel shown on the photo and the 6th is the detector cryostat window.

What you might have missed the past few months (because I've been too busy to post!) - intense period of sub-system integration and verification for the HARPS3 spectrograph. The past few weeks - integration of the main optical components ...