Hi everyone! We’re back to tell you a bit more about what’s been going on up on the roof lately!

The biggest obstacle we’ve been facing recently has been the weather. London is usually quite cloudy, but recently it seems as though clouds have a permanent place overhead (and let’s not even begin to discuss the snow we got). While we did go up to the roof once in weeks 7 and 8, the sky wasn’t quite clear enough to see much of interest. But fear not, we were still productive! Our biggest accomplishment of that night was adjusting the weighting of the telescope to improve accuracy. It was a group effort to hold up the OTA (Optical Tube Assembly – aka the main body of the telescope) and move it into the optimal position. There was much trial and error involved, and the words “we have to move the telescope again” may or may not have earned Isaac some death glares throughout the night. In the end though, we managed to get the counterweight on, the telescope balanced, and we saw a dramatic improvement in the accuracy and steadiness of the telescope. Of course, no blog post would be complete without pictures, so here’s one of Malcolm laughing at us trying to get the telescope into place:

Check in again soon for more of our adventures!

• Despina, Conor, Ethasham, Isaac, and AJ