What I Wish I had Known When I Began Building Astronomical Instruments

Abstract

This paper describes lessons learned over a long career building astronomical instruments. Although these lessons are based on one person's experiences, they were learned while working on major and minor instrument projects with many scientific and engineering colleagues. When I interact with colleagues entering the field, I am reminded that the "obvious" approaches were in fact learned over many years by observing others develop instruments, by receiving good advice, and by making mistakes. I hope to help others avoid making all of the same mistakes.