A day out of the life of a PHOBOS collaborator.

Besides the excitement of being involved in the PHOBOS experiment, which is in its final construction phase, this PHOBOS collaborator gets quit a kick out of traveling back-and-forth between Rochester and Brookhaven. This page shows some highlights of my activities on Tuesday April 27, 1999.

The main reason to travel to Brookhaven was to discuss trigger and DAQ related issues with several collaborators at BNL. Departure time from Rochester was 6.40 am (10 minutes behind schedule) and the following pictures were taken on the flight from Rochester to Brookhaven.

 

View on the Catskills from 9000 feet.

 

Crossing the Hudson at 9000 feet.

 

Approaching Long Island Sound at 4000 feet.

 

Over Bridgeport (CT) at 4000 feet, looking for unidentified traffic at 3700 feet.

 

Descending to 2000 feet while crossing Long Island Sound (note I could clearly see NYC from this position, but this picture does not really show this incredible visibility.

 

View of the eastern tip of Long Island while crossing Long Island Sound.

The destination of this trip was BNL and New York Approach gave me permission to amend my IFR flight plan to include a hold at 2000 feet over the laboratory. The following pictures were taken while in a holding pattern on a radial from the Calverton VOR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After landing at 9 am at Brookhaven Airport, the day was filled with detailed discussion on Data Acquisition hardware and software issues, and trigger and TOF cabling issues. Decisions on where to put which electronics racks were made. The following pictures were taken in the tunnel and shows the position of the rack for the TOF NIM electronics (to be used to drive the LED calibration circuit) and various pieces for the slow controls.

 

The electronics rack will be bolted to the ground.

 

The chalk marks on the ground indicate the location of the TOF section that sits on the floor and the location of the cart that will be used to move the TOF section that is located inside the magnet into position.

 

View of the IR from the position of the ZCALs.

The return flight home departed Brookhaven Airport at 5 pm after a ground hold by New York Center of about 20 minutes. The trip home went via the Calverton VOR, the HAAYS intersection, the Hugeunot VOR, V252 to Binghamton, and then direct Rochester. On departure I had another nice view of BNL. My final altitude was 10000 feet, which nicely put me in and out of a scattered layer with bases at 9500 feet and tops at 10500 feet. I was having a lot of fun up there; much more fun than I would have had at my filed altitude of 8000 feet.