So.... Kiwamu and I were concerned (still a little concerned) that ETMY is not damping as nicely as it should be.  (It's fine, but the UL rms is ~5, rather than ~1 or less. BURT restores by Kiwamu didn't change anything.) Anyhow, I was heading out to push the annoying ribbon cables more firmly into the satellite adapter board things that are tied to the racks in various places (The back of 1X5 for the corner optics and the end station racks for the ETMs).  The point was to push in the ETMY one, but while I was out in the lab and thinking about it, I also gave all of the corner connectors (MC1, MC2, MC3, ITMx, ITMY, BS, PRM, SRM) a firm push. 

Kiwamu noticed that when I did this, the Mode Cleaner alignment got a little bit worse, as if the connection to the satellite adapter boards hadn't been great, I pushed the connectors in and the connection got better, but we also got a bit of a DC offset in the MC alignment.  Anyhow, the MC_TRANS power went down by ~2, to about the place it had been before Kiwamu adjusted the position of the lens in between the zigzag mirrors.  (I don't know if Kiwamu elogged it earlier, but he scooted the lens a teensy bit closer in the optical path to the Mode Cleaner). 

To counteract this loss in MC transmitted power as a result of my connector actions, I went back to the PSL table and fiddled with the zigzag steering mirrors that steer the beam from the PSL table over to the mode cleaner.  I got it a little better, but it's still not perfect.

Kiwamu has noted that to improve the mode matching into the Mode Cleaner with the new PMC in place, we might have to move the lens which is currently between the zigzag steering mirrors, and put it after the second mirror (so in between the last steering mirror and the pickoff window that sends a piece of the beam over to PSL_POS and PSL_ANG).  This will make the waist between MC1 and MC3 tighter. 

Moral of the story:  To improve IMC mode matching we need to move the last lens closer in the optical path to the mode cleaner waist. Twiddle with zigzag steering mirrors to optimize.