June 22st- Day 4

Testing... 1... 2... 3...

We got badges and keys to the place. We're official now! Alex started things off by having us watch a safety video about the ionizing radiation we would be dealing with and the safety precautions we would have to take. We made sure everything was grounded and in place. Then it was on to the testing. We turned on the camera and... wait for it... couldn't see anything. Big surprise. We started moving the x of the source using the green '+' and '-' buttons and found a little glimpse of the crystal fairly quickly. The tricky part was trying to make the reflection of the rays off the optic a big, bright, straight, vertical line in the center of the camera. There was a lot of guessing and trying different things moving the various axis. After struggling for a while Alex came to help us. After we adjusted the height of the camera and source it turns out we weren't too far off. We knew we achieved what we were looking for when we moved x and the whole image disappeared at once. This meant the source and the optic were aligned correctly. Just trying to find the image took most of the day. Our next task was to hook up and align the detector. After that job was completed we scanned x to find the spot and then scanned x and y of the detector trying to see the peak of the Cu K alpha. At first we saw the spectrum then for whatever reason we lost the spot. Alex tried putting an orange paper(?) over the detector that would leave a mark where the spot hit it. We couldn't see anything. Alex suggested changing the set up and we tried it without any luck. By that time it was time to go home.