The following pictures were taken by the Aerospace operations during Big Dish operations.
 
 

The Big Dish at sunrise during picosatellite operations.

Close-up of the track for azimuth motion of the dish.

Mike Cousins sits at the control station for driving the dish. He wasn't always this cheery in the morning!

XXX from Aerospace works out picosatellite pass predictions.

The dish, earlier in the morning, still darkened. Yes, it was way too early to be there.

Prof. Bob Twiggs, John Ellis, XXX, and Larry Cunningham discuss Opal passes at the SSDL ground station.

Jamie Cutler adjust the receiver frequency looking for Opal transmissions. John Ellis looks on and advises.

Nelson Ho from Aerospace works on mounting the picosatellite receiver on the lowered feed horn of the big dish.

Jon XXX Osborn consults higher authorities on the phone at the dish.

Dan Oltrogge, Aerospace Corp., works on pass predictions and az/el angles for the dish. Mike Cousins looks bored on the phone.

Mike Cousins, SRI, relaxes next to the dish support track while waiting for sun rise.

The Aerospace Team plans their attack for morning activities.

Mike Cousins, SRI, tweaks the big dish position.

The Stanford and Aerospace ops teams anxiously await picosatellite reception signals.

XXX, Aerospace Corp, is dwarfed by the dish behind him. The feed horn is lowered to install the proper equipment.

The dish at sunrise. We saw more sun rises those first few weeks of operations than we had ever seen total in our lives.

The small picosatellite feed horn mounted below the primary horn. The black box at the end of the small horn is a picoatellite used for communicating with the piocsatellites in orbit. The large feed horn was used to contact Opal.

Nelson Ho, Aerospace, prepares to communicate with the picos through his laptop.

Nelson's wondering who that is taking pictures of him!

NASA/JPL folks prepare to fit dish with their own feed horn during attempts to listen to the silent Mars mission, the polar lander. The fog was often thick in the mornings. Had to watch carefully for cows and horses on the way up to the big dish (yes, there are cows in the hills behind Stanford).

Another shot of the Mars team loading up their feed horn.

Dan Oltrogge, Aerospace, watches Jamie Cutler, Stanford, prepare the Stanford ground station remotely via the internet.

"Yep, it's early, and we look good!" Dan Oltrogge, Aerospace, and Mike Cousins, SRI, prepare for pico passes.

Stanford ops teams huddles around computer watching Opal contact. Front row from left to right--Alex Bordetsky from UCH, Larry Cunningham, Greg Hutchins, and Jamie Cutler. Back row from left to right--John Ellis, Dick Kors, Bob Twiggs, Dave XXX.