A late post of some of the pictures that Jeff B took for us on Friday. We were curious to see if the cameras that are looking at the ITMs could see the CO2 crosshair alignment lasers. The hope was that we could see how well aligned we were on ITMX so we wouldn't have to heat them up to determine our centering.

So can we see the alignment lasers? No.

We first tried with the ALS unshuttered, but the green would be too dominant. We then shuttered ALS and played with different length expose times with the alignment laser on and off. No luck. Jeff then suggested that we take images of ITMY as well to make sure that it isn't just an atrocious alignment on IX. Same result. The only thing that might be a hint of the alignment laser is a spec of red seen at the top edge and side edge of the test mass that would not be seen when we had the alignment laser off. This could have just been an odd reflection from somewhere else though, since commissioners where working on other parts of the interferometer at the same time.

Pic1 - ITMX with misaligned green, alignment laser on

Pic2 - ITMX, no green, ~60sec exposure, alignment laser on

Pic3 - ITMY, aligned green, alignment laser on

Pic4 - ITMY, no green, ~45sec exposure, alignment laser on

Pic5 - ITMY, no green, ~45sec exposure, alignment laser off