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Four members of the group attended the Simons Observatory Collaboration meeting in Manchester this July (one remotely). It was a great opportunity to meet old friends and make news ones. Also wonderful to see three group alumni in roles of responsibility within the collaboration. We shared five posters summarizing our research at the meeting.

These last couple of months we have been in the process of moving our holography setup into the anechoic chamber. In addition to Thomas Gascard and Rustam Balafendiev, we have received lots of help from BSc student Katrín Hekla Magnúsdóttir.

We recently purchased a refracting telescope (TS 100mm f/5.8 Quadruplet Flatfield) with a camera (ASI 183), a filter wheel. All placed on a Skywatcher AZ EQ6 GT mount. One of the goals for this summer is to learn how to use the telescope so that we can eventually use the system as a teaching instrument.

We did a quick test of the system during a departmental barbeque and managed to catch some sun spots :)

Members of the CMBeam team participated in Vísindavaka, an annual public outreach event for young people. Our booth was equipped with a 1.5-m diameter gravity demonstrator, some videos (in Icelandic) on various astrophysics activities at the University of Iceland, a Hoberman sphere, a perpetual motion machine, and a poster summarizing CMB research activities at the university. The gravity demonstrator and perpetual motion machine were definitely the main attractions.

We went away with lots of ideas on what to demonstrate next year and we will definitely be participating again :)

Members of the CMBeam team visited Yokohama, Japan, to participate in the SPIE conference. It was wonderful to see old friends and make new ones. The highlight was definitely talking to all the brilliant people at the poster sessions and learning about their work. Also, it turns out that there is a clothing store in Japan called BEAMS!

Here are some photos from the meeting: