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> Each night, a swimming pool’s worth of ice is emptied into eight tanks. During the day, coolant is routed through the ice tanks and distributed through the ob
by newnewpdro 7y ago
> Each night, a swimming pool’s worth of ice is emptied into eight tanks. During the day, coolant is routed through the ice tanks and distributed through the observatory by 7.5 miles (12km) of piping. More than 100 air jets are also positioned behind the main mirror.
Are they actually making a swimming pool's worth of ice cubes that are "emptied" into these tanks? I looked at the wikipedia page [0] for more information but there's no mention of the cooling system.
It sounds like a major part of the interesting engineering challenge, strange to not find photos or even a description of the cooling system's design.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_K._Inouye_Solar_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_K._Inouye_Solar_Telesco...
- orbital-decay 7y agoYes - they actually make ice from the collected rainwater. Here's the paper with an overview of their cooling system: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.924592 https://doi.org/10.1117/12.924592 Notably, the telescope enclosure is actively cooled to mitigate thermal seeing effects.
- buildbot 7y agoThat was an interesting read, thanks!
- bregma 7y agoThe real question is, is the ice available for the scientist's cocktails? Can we express the total volume if ice in terms of Martini cocktail shakers?