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One of the highlights, if you can call it that, of working in Cambridge was the not infrequent chance to visit the now-defunct Synchrotron Radiation Source at Daresbury. Although I spent many hours in one or other of the experimental hutches, coaxing diffraction patterns from reluctant crystals, I never got to see inside any of the bits that made the whole thing work. I saw inside the control room, sure, gawping at the banks of monitors, oscilloscopes and goodness only knows what.

I knew about the multipole wigglers and the undulators that forced electrons to make handbrake turns at the speed of light, forcing them to spit out light of varying wavelengths–all the way from the infra-red down to the X-rays necessary to solve protein structures–and the linear accelerator and the booster and storage rings, but never saw inside any of them.

Imagine my joy, then, at this little peek into the workings of the Diamond Light Source, from Backstage Science, made possible by a four-week shutdown:

Backstage Science is run by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, and is possibly the closest thing to Geek Heaven this side of the Kuiper Belt.