Day to day LIGO

Not only is LIGO an interesting project, I think it is a fun place to work. There is always something to learn, partly from what I need to get done, and partly just due to being around so many smart people (there are a lot of astrophysists here).

For What is LIGO see the previous blog entry.

I work as one of the computer systems administrators. It keeps me busy as I have my hand in about everything, from front line help desk to setting up and maintaining our servers. Fortunately the computing environment here is broken up into several different fields, or one person would get swamped.

Here are some pictures that I have taken while going around the observatory.

Here are a series of portable clean rooms that have been custom built to assemble some of our bulkier items.

These are pictures from the LVEA. It is where the interferometer actually sits. When I interviewed they took me through this area to show me what it was. At that point they definitely had me. I don't care if I don't get to play with these systems, I'll mop the floors or do the landscaping to work here.

I don't work on these systems, but I do love my job.

The lasers are housed in a very strong vacuum.

Here you can see a clean area that has been set up. They access the internals of the system here.

Now a trip outside. The tubes you saw in the LVEA run 4km from the main building.

The 'Y' arm of the interferomiter.

Looking out on the desert.

Living in the desert has a few aspects of it that I did not expect. For instance we get a lot of wind up here. I did not realize exactly how many tumble weeds we would get. I think all these pictures were taken on the same day.

The tumble weeds even make it onto the roof.

Here a huge pile up has occured, at least 40 feet deep and 20 tall.

We have almost had a car burried.