2015A Day 11: Pretty Hurts

The word of the day is windy. Tonight was so windy we could barely open. From the night report by TO Mauricio Martinez:
3.- 23:40 UT High winds for MagAO, Closed. /MMa
4.- 01:56 UT Opened. /MMa
5.- 02:18 UT High winds for MagAO, Closed. /MMa
6.- 03:59 UT Opened, SH Conemode enabled, with better sky condition, better EL SH performed better. /MMa
7.- 06:08 UT High winds for MagAO, Closed. /MMa

And what does that look like?

5am High Winds Clay

We kept trying to peek through the wind anyway:

Here you can see all the “sucker troughs” that kept us awake and hopeful throughout the night

Well after all the work last week and this week to travel here, tear Clio apart, put Clio back together again — we finally have some pretty images on Clio. This is the new Brackett Gamma filter:

Our new Brackett Gamma filter has a nice 74-mas PSF and no obvious inherent filter ghosts. It’s pretty, but it sure hurt with sleeplessness to get it that pretty!

And some pretty plots of the pumpdown and cooldown last week:

Clio pump down — Minutes vs. pressure on 3 places on the pump — the final steep drop in pressure is when I started cooling.

Clio cool down — Minutes vs. inner and outer dewar temperature.

But it takes a lot of work to get Clio that pretty, and it takes its toll:

Pretty Hurts: A representative picture.

I’ve been this sleepy too:

Jared, Sebastien, Matt, Mauricio… and the representative clean room bird.

Meanwhile, Laird attached more Arizona gear to the Nas before he left today:

Laird is licensed to drive MagAO.

Beyonce knows how it is:

As do Chloe and Halle: