Where to put that Pilatus?

The BCSB had its first User Forum meeting on Feb 5. We discussed the possibilities for the new b3 software interface, showed some screenshots of new the new interface, and gathered information from our users on what they wanted in the “new b3”. It was a very productive discussion! The next User Forum will be…

A special welcome to our SULI student, Sayan Roychowhury, who is majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Illinois. He is here with us for the fall term, and writing code to process visual images of protein crystals and center them automatically in the x-ray beam. SULI is the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program in which the host lab (in this case, LBNL) pays for a student to work for a few months to gain experience at a national lab and to encourage students to remain in STEM fields.

During the January shutdown, we decided to test the two Q315R detectors that used to live in beamlines 5.0.1 and 5.0.2. Fortunately, they still work! Once Gemini is commissioned (at the end of this year, if all goes well) then we will have to take the Pilatus out of 5.0.1 and move it over to Gemini. Therefore, good to know that the Q315R is still good. Here it is being tested on the floor at 5.0.1.

Once again, the BCSB teamed up with several other groups at the ALS to host a booth at the ACA. It was great to hang out with our ALS colleagues and to see many of our users.        

Recently, Marc helped a user run some crystals which the user had arranged to have grown in zero-gravity. Here are pictures of the crystal capillaries mounted at the beamline, and the raster grid used to locate crystals within a capillary.