2015B Day 8: Clouds Say Hey

Well another night like last night. Amali got here today and she started up AO and also learned how to operate Clio. And then we sat here like this:

Clouds 1

And this:

Clouds 2

Sadly this means we didn’t get much of our engineering done. Oh El Nino…

Another song dancing in the streets: This one to cheer you up after seeing all those clouds and high winds:

2015B Day 6: Arizona Engineering Clouds

Today was our first night of Arizona engineering. We have a lot of calibrations to do, with all of our modes, but sadly it was cloudy and windy out of the North. I hear it’s because of El Nino.

We closed for clouds a little bit into the night, for an hour or so. Then we opened again and did our best to calibrate through clouds.

Sunset:

Jared at sunset

These pictures are all from the past week or so. Which one is Tucson and which one is LCO?

Tucson or LCO?

Tucson or LCO?

Yesterday’s song was Glitch Mob, which reminded me of flash mobs:

2015B Day 5: Clio Shows Up

We have reached 100% MagAO for 2015B.

Katie supervises the installation of Clio. Compared to most of the things lifted by the crane in the dome, Clio is just a bitty little thing. That actually makes it harder!
Your daily Vizcacha. This is one of the “wild” ones that lives over the edge north of the telescopes. Still no sign of the “tame” ones at the clean room.

If you visit LCO you’ll notice that many, if not most, of the car doors have bird droppings all over them just behind the mirrors. This video shows you why — some of the birds have discovered that other birds live inside the mirrors, and spend most of their days attacking said mirror-birds. This is just a little #LifeAtLCO.

The sun going down on our first full-up night.

The intended purpose of a “poker face” is to make a fortune. Tonight the Glitch Mob tells us about Fortune Days.

2015B Day 4: The Loop Has Closed

For the first time in MagAO’s history we closed the loop on our first night. It usually takes too long during the day to get everything done. We didn’t get Clio bolted on, but we were able to close the loop with the “dummy dichroic”.

Here’s the ASM just being lifted.
The NAS waits its turn.
The ASM just after removing the cover.
Laird and Katie mounting the “Anaconda” cable.
Here is our first closed loop of 2015B!

Following last night’s song, which was a Gaga Parody, here’s a Gaga cover.