This afternoon, after the final B&K hammer measurements were complete, and SEI locked the ISI and began their preps, I began securing the FMy and ITMy for lift-off. Because the First COntact that was on the ITMy HR was many months old, and had been peeled down for IAS purposes numerous times over the last 2 months, I removed it and put a fresh coat on, including a new tab at the top. I observed a lot of particulate on the optic after the peel and attempted to remove them with alpha swabs and the N2 gun (gun also used intermittently during FC removal). This was cumbersome and while doing it I (and Corey over my shoulder) noticed some streaking pattern not from the First Contact, as well as some First Contact PEEK mesh patterning on the optic. More pictures to come. So, I gave up on the dabbing and blowing and reapplied the new FC coating. Then, I secured all of the EQ stops on both the FMy and ITMy, with the exceptions of: - 2 nuts (missing) - one on each UIM side stops, and - the ITMy Top Mass Blade Stops, which require removing the Top Mass BOSEMs. The masses and blades above and below are rock solid however, so this is fine. I then added the new "finger" assembly which acts as a 20mm gap stop between the ITMy AR and the CP HR. This assembly, however hangs down below the QUAD structure and may be a problem for the cartridge, but is easy to remove tomorrow if needed. I also added the transport pins to the vibration absorbers on both suspensions. I covered the FMy.
I took some over-the-shoulder photos of the H1ITMY as Betsy was working on it. The photos are in ResourceSpace, here.
It's hard to manually focus on the stuff we were looking at, but I think we have a few photos where we were able to capture some of the particles/marks on the surface of the optic. Saw a little bit of everything as far as contaminants on the mirror surface: dried liquid stains, dust particles, chunk of First Contact (due to a hole on the First Contact film), and some weird patterned ("pixel-ated" Matrix-esque) marks.
Gripes about ResourceSpace:
Grrrr.....yeah, it's not intuitive how to post Resource Space links (yet another gripe).
Anyways, the REAL link for the photos I took are here:
https://ligoimages.mit.edu/?c=877