That getter is fascinating, it's a new concept to me. Recently we blew a picoammeter because we fired up a vacuum guage in UHV after disconnection from the roughing pump. The vacuum guage out gassed massively giving us shit vacuum, this then fried the picoammeter and left us scratching our heads for a few hours. Firing the vacuum guage while still connected to the roughing pump would have solved this problem. Thanks for sharing the getter information.
A month ago, nothing you said would have made any sense to me, but after trying to make a glow discharge tube, it is eminently obvious (you have to be extremely careful with sensitive vacuum gauges).
