During the month of January 2017, I lived in Flagstaff, Arizona with a group of physicists and astronomy/astrophysics students. We were there as part of a school course doing field work. I got two degrees at MIT - one in physics (with a heavy concentration in astrophysics/quantum), and mechanical engineering. I asked my astronomy teacher if I could join this class, but find a project as a mechE since that was my bread and butter degree, not my "for fun" one. For the first time ever, this class had a mechE project; I was to be volunteering with the NPOI (Naval Precision Optical Inteferometer) rebuilding their telescope apparatus.
During my three weeks there, I found 30-year old drawings of the existing machinery and translated them into Solidworks assemblies and drawings (with machining drawings for manufacture should they need to build more at some point). I also helped design and CAD and system that would incorporate more vacuum tubes to transfer light from the telescopic apparatus directly into the interferometer. I learned a lot about vacuum-fitting, the dimensioning and parts necessary for keeping secure low-pressures and how the temperature could affect all of these things. (I was there in the winter, and we saw a 3-ft-snow-in-2-day blizzard, and in the summer it gets very hot - so this instrument had to withstand both extremes!)
I feel like I contributed a lot to the project, and was invited back to see the machinery when it was up and running as they got my work installed.
Here is what the final system looked like:
A picture of the snowy NPOI system. The total apparatus was 1/3 mile long (i think longer?) and felt HUGE.
It was also absolutely beautiful, in scenery and machinery. Telescopes and refractors are really cool machines. So are interferometers. Wow physics is so cool, and astronomy is too, and astrophysics, and (!) engineering FOR astrophysics.
Here is what the original system looked like in CAD form!
