The joys of real-life science
Jul. 24th, 2008 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Going through my old notes, I found this excerpt from the manual for a $10 mil. instrument. ("CCD" is a light-sensitive chip; it's basically the business end of a visible-light astronomical instrument.)
"We will be using an engineering-grade CCD at first-light.... The science-grade CCD has not yet been (nor may ever be) received.... One very prominent distinguising cosmetic defect of this CCD is a large felt-tip pen mark near the center of the CCD. It was kindly added by some technician at CENSORED to remind us that this virtually flawless $100,000 CCD is only an engineering-grade device. Unfortunately, the folks at CENSORED seem to have forgotten how to make science-grade devices, so we are stuck with this annoying blob."
"We will be using an engineering-grade CCD at first-light.... The science-grade CCD has not yet been (nor may ever be) received.... One very prominent distinguising cosmetic defect of this CCD is a large felt-tip pen mark near the center of the CCD. It was kindly added by some technician at CENSORED to remind us that this virtually flawless $100,000 CCD is only an engineering-grade device. Unfortunately, the folks at CENSORED seem to have forgotten how to make science-grade devices, so we are stuck with this annoying blob."