February 2016 – Page 4 – Extreme Wavefront Control Lab

MagAO helped identify the progenitor of SN 2016adj

It is rare for MagAO to carry out extragalactic observations because suitable natural guide stars are hard to find.

But this time we have got some luck. A week ago (February 8), a bright supernova, SN 2016adj, appeared in the active galaxy NGC 5128 (Centaurus A). Classified as Type IIb, its progenitor is believed to be a very massive star in a binary system, undergoing a significant mass loss before explosion. However, direct identification of the progenitor remains challenging, even though astronomers have been constantly detecting supernovae in imaging surveys.

Since SN 2016adj is only 4″ from a bright foreground star, it is an ideal target for our visible AO camera. Prompted by Prof. Nathan Smith, we used MagAO to observe the supernova on February 13, and successfully took ~2 hr deep exposures at 0.9 micron. Comparing the new MagAO image to archival HST and VLT data, we and our collaborators were able to identify a possible progenitor star. Notably, this is the 5th Type IIb progenitor identified in pre-explosion images over the past 20 years.

We used MagAO to identify the progenitor star in this pre-explosion image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Yesterday we posted our results on the Astronomer’s Telegram. You can find the link here:
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=8693

2016A Day 4: Eye Trouble

We started tonight off with some eyepiece observing. Of course, since we had visitors, the ASM decided to act up. It seems to be the same problem we had in 2015A — and I hope it will go away by itself just like it did then. In the brief moments we had a working AO system, we managed to induct 9 new members in L’Ordine .

L'Ordine — Katie signing new members Tom Pritzker, Margot Pritzker, and Ken Wong into the book.

chicago — Wendy Freedman just after signing her name.

pretty — A too cloudy, but gorgeous evening sky two nights ago.

It’s Valentine’s Day!

Keep it funky.

2016A Day 3: Loop is closed

Today was a 7am breakfast to 7am dawn kind of day. Mario Matteo and his team finished their M2FS run with some calibrations, Juan and the crew pulled M2FS and the f/11, Juan et al. installed our NAS and ASM, we cabled the ASM and NAS, and finally we went on sky, closed the loop, Povilas et al. tested the guider, and we tried out the eyepiece as well as VisAO extragalactic observations. It was a very good, very long day!

It's a nice walk. — The long road to MagAO.

Here are Pato and the crew helping Laird and I cable the ASM — it involves laying cables in the tray along the spider — you can see it in the Clio pupil images, this spider is a bit thicker with all the electronics, communications, and cooling lines we have to run to our ASM:

cable tray — Pato and the crew helping Laird and I cable the ASM.

The new VisAO field stop designed by UA/MagAO grad student Ya-Lin Wu has been deployed:

Nice job Ya-Lin! — The VisAO field stop has been deployed – it works!

And here we are doing some extragalactic AO at 4am in the control room:

Some day you will find me — The high-contrast imaging team doing extragalactic AO at the end of a 24-hour-long-day

good pic Laird! — Laird and I saw a hawk in a tree

Song of the day:

2016A Day 2: Clio’s so cool

I feel so much better after getting 8 hours of sleep in a bed! That red-eye is brutal. But now I’ve had a full day of good food after good sleep, Clio is chilling, and things are good. Today…

…I cooled Clio with Victor’s help:

…Jared and Laird worked on the NAS and Laird moved the ASM:

…Truly Nolen killed all the things:

…Jared plugged in the radios because now that we are here he has someone to talk to:

I’m really into this song:

2016A Day 1: This and That

Katie arrived safe and sound, just in time for dinner. During the day: more preparations, mostly working on our new toys. We installed the new field stop, but only after Laird drew all over it with a Sharpie.

it looks like a 4 year old did it — Everyone here agrees that Sharpie does almost no good. But it must look like we did the right thing.

Oscar helped us countersink some bolts, and Laird tested out the mount for our new camera.

gains — Our new super whamodyne electron multiplying CCD camera.

fibers — Clay getting ready for some M2FS observing.

I’ve been obsessing about read noise in our wavefront sensor camera. This isn’t a new thing, some of our most epic “sea stories” revolve around troubleshooting this camera. That was all solved a while ago, but now we are trying to get it running at 2000 Hz. So this song is about noise.

The fact that I can’t find a youtube entry of the album version of this song makes me feel “not fresh”.