W. M. Keck Observatory

ATT Metrology Solutions (ATT) was contracted by Keck Observatory to inspect the Azimuth Journal Bearing of Keck 1 telescope. Our customer’s focus was to determine whether any significant deviation from their prior data collected in 2006 after the Kiholo Bay Earthquake existed. Due to the importance of the data obtained with the telescope, it was crucial for them to gather this data to reduce the amount of stress to the bearing surface as well as the drive motor of the telescope to avoid downtime in the future.

ATT created a custom targeting fixture that allows us to measure the two different contact surfaces at the same time. Using this custom fixture lowered the amount of time required to gather the data requested from our customers. The fixture was shipped back to our base office in Issaquah, WA where it was inspected to obtain the appropriate offsets for the two surfaces. The data created with the offsets were accurate to the 0.005” well below the requirements of the customer.

Using our skills in custom target adapter manufacturing ATT was able to arrive onsite. analysis the item to be measured, model a custom fixture, manufacture the fixture and perform the inspection all while performing under challenging environmental conditions of cold temperatures and high altitude 13,800’.