5 December, 1996

Today we spent most of the day working on debugging the software for data transmission and data acquisition on the instrument. We used email quite a bit to get information from researchers in Denver who are involved in writing software and in analyzing the data. Since the data isn't analyzed here, we needed to know from them whether the

data we collect is reasonable or not. Debugging some of the software was a very tedious process. While we were working, the astronomy lab next door was filling a dewar for a telescope with liquid helium and in the process a valve blew off and vented helium all over the lab. Luckily the cryogenic technician was working nearby at the time and was able to help them get the valves working and the dewar under control. Liquid helium can cause serious frostbite, so they had to

use gloves in order to handle the dewar.