MagAO-Classic posts

MagAO-Classic has landed in TUS. This is the last MagAO-C 2019B post. Here we are at the baggage claim in Tucson. We all made it and so did our bags! And I ...

If we got a Chilean peso for every time that phrase was used this run we could build a new ASM. From network ghosts and hardware bamboozle-ments to empty Chilean airports and Katie’s missing sandwich, we encountered a lot of new scenarios. The most troubling and only one unresolved – Katie’s missing sandwich. Last ...

Last night went great. Now today MagAO-Classic has been removed from Clay to the Aux and the clean room. Night schedules are switching to day schedules. It was a 3-viscacha day at the clean room and many NSF proposals have been worked on, and SPIE abstracts have been drafted and submitted to the extend possible. Sunset ...

Tonight was our last night on-sky with MagAO-Classic in 2019B. It was my telescope night, and Amali ran AO after Emily went to bed around midnight. Tomorrow’s the big day for removing MagAO-C from the telescope, so we always do these staggered bedtimes. It’s nice to have Amali and Emily here to help with removal. Emily, ...

Amali’s blog post about the saga of the Alpaca was another creative expository piece that tonight we had a ceremony to award her the 2019B MagAO-C blog award: Jared gives the citation and Amali graciously accepts the award [Image description: Amali and Jared stand on the Clay catwalk with the setting sun behind them. Amali is ...

Tonight was finally the promised night of relaxed AO operation after multiple nights of troubleshooting. It is much more to an AO operators delight to only need to open and close the loop for new targets with the occasional MatLab pop up forcing a reset on the tip tilt. Alberto, our telescope operator, was able ...

Tonight, gentle readers, a tale of drama and derring-do! A mystery was solved, a dastardly plot uncovered, an insidious impostor unmasked, several computers rebooted, a culprit nabbed, and, despite its most vicious efforts, the criminal’s final revenge borne without injury. I present: The Alpaca Saga! THE CASE Yesterday night the adaptive secondary — aka adsec, asm, shell, ...

I’m working on telescope domination this week. I started at Clay using MIKE (well, not really, I got clouded out). I moved to duPont using CAPSCam, I had a night off to visit with the MagAO team, and now I’m back at Clay using MagAO. Tomorrow I’m off to Baade with MagE. ...

Tonight was Alycia’s first night. I told Emily it would be more relaxed than last night with all Jayne’s weird rotations because Alycia’s observations are more in MagAO’s wheelhouse — Alycia is searching for faint companions; keeping the rotator off for ADI mode; and is a Clio and general observational expert. But… hah. So on the ...

Today was our first science night, with visiting observers Jayne and Ben from Amsterdam in collaboration with Sebastian from Arizona. Jayne, Jared, and I were all Sagan fellows before becoming faculty, and Sebastian is a current Sagan(-Hubble) fellow at Arizona. A picture of the 3 Sagan alums in the Clay control room. [Image description: Jared is ...