Author: Eden McEwen

MagAO-X 2026A Day 11: Bizarro world

Welcome to the day of flips, we’re back on the telescope and everything feels just a little off. Flip the platform, NASE to NASW. Flip the schedule, day to night. Flip the detectors, visible to IR. We were not victorious for all fights involving negative signs, but our 24 hour day was full of flipping successes.

Family road trip to the summit!

Flipping the alignment with fiducials – Success!

The morning was spent following Laird and Katie’s procedure for getting MagAO-X to the mirrored position of its NASE home. Through some of the smallest moves you’ve ever seen a 2000lbs instrument on rough surface make, we got right to where where the fiducials should sit relative to the instrument and guider. There was some discussion about platform height that would needed to be verified once starlight entered the system.

Katie uniquely qualified for this squeeze.
Fiducials on point.

Flipping over the telescope for acc speed – Success!

Post lunch, Parker flipped the telescope on it side to install some new accelerometer raspberryPi hardware and circuits. He’s now able to read out wibbles and wobbles at 10kHz, up from with his previous limits of 4kHz. With these fast and furious speeds a future of predictive control this run is looking bright.

How low can it go?
Soloing the scissor lift.

Flipping on all the switches – 95%

The rest of us spent the afternoon threading MagAO-X back together again. This endeavor is partially plumbing, partially fishing around for wires in the rack, and as we cable up the DM, somewhat surgical. Everything was connected by dinnertime, and only 3 of our 50+ wires ended up being somewhat loose. We’ll still call that a success. Initial reviews of NASW are glowing

Another Katie sized space.
Chemical assistant to the DM cable crew.

Flip-worthy sunset? Success!

We’re almost always on the hunt for a green flash at sunset, and tonight’s really delivered. The cloud layer was flat enough and the air was clear enough to catch a seconds-long glimpse of the green light of a refracted setting sun. We were chuffed to bits, to put it mildly. It may have been one of the clearest and brightest green flash the team has ever seen.

The classic sunset watch selfie.

Flipping MagAO-X to NASW- A success all things considered

Certain parts of our operation depend on knowing where the telescope will move next. The platform orientation flip affects how our k mirror keeps our field steady, our ADCs keeps the atmosphere from chromatically dispersing our light, and our woofer keeps the telescope on track with periodic offloads. Not all the flips were caught on the first go through, but by the halfway point of the night we had a PSF just as pretty as we’re used to back home (NASE). We didn’t even have to run up to the platform and re-adjust the bench position.

Inspecting our first target.
First FDPR PSF from NASW.

Flipping to a visitor camera – Success!

Camdurham made its way back inside the instrument and tonight it saw its very first stellar photons through MagAO-X. We got beautiful single and double star spectrum throughout the various engineering tasks. In the image below, you can see MagAO-X providing diffraction limited images throughout the near IR. (You can also see our resolution decrease as the wavelengths get longer.)

Cleaning the prism used for dispersing light on the CRED2.
First light raw frame, spanning 900nm to 1700nm.

Flipping off sidereal tracking – Partial success

Tiffany and Jay have been hard at work finding extended objects for MagAO-X to image, such as asteroids or satellites. These are tricky for the AO system, but they’re also tricky for the telescope which can no longer follow the well calculated paths of stars across the night sky, aka sidereal tracking. With the help of our TO Hernán, we were able to center a weather satellite on our acquisition camera. We weren’t able to keep up with it long enough to send through to our science cameras, so there’s more work to be done on the tracking front. Even with our acquisition camera we were able to resolve the solar panels on the 20ft target.

It takes a village to figure out non-sidereal tracking.
CamAcq’s satellite sighting.
Render of GOES-16

Flipping to remote ops – Setup success

Meanwhile, back in Tucson, we had Jialin and Josh test our remote operations computer. When the rest of us head home in a week, we’ll be using this setup to control MagAO-X remotely in April and May. A huge next step in making MagAO-X available and flexible for our observers.

The hard work of our friends back in AZ.

Color of the Day

Blink and you miss it green, seen tonight but chased after every sunset.

Song of the Day

“It All Began With A Burst” by Kishi Bashi

MagAO-X 2026A Day 0: On a plane already?

Flying out on Friday the 13th comes with some ominous portents. Thankfully, we only seemed to be hexed with suboptimal seat assignments and the briefest of turbulence. As of writing the early crew has made it safely to LCO, tucked in and ready to start fresh tomorrow morning.

Proof of life.

For all those traveling later, know that there are some tasty cafes right outside the B terminal now. Post security no longer contains the only sustenance offerings. The Starbucks by luggage check-in has, in fact, even kept up the important renaming ritual.

Jerry, Jen, and Iren – now caffeinated.

The welcoming committee to LCO was packed. Just as we turned off the highway a large wild horse heard greeted us. We ran into even more at the top of the mountain.

White horse in line.
Sharing the road.
Not sharing the road.

A family of Burros we’ve never seen before met us in the basin. One family was very bright white too! The more local mountain burros looked to have welcomed some new members recently as well.

Albino and family.
Fluffball and family.

After a quick dinner (thank you chefs for staying open for us) Jay and I took a walk to double check we had our essentials in play. It looks like we’re all ready for tomorrow!

Cleanroom vizzy.
MagAO-X in the cleanroom room.

The mythical white horse, the albino burro, and auspicious vizzy all must mean something. I’m sure we’ll be able to interpret these portents by the end of the run.

Color of the day: Prophetic Albino Burro White

Blog Rules: Color of the day

  1. Every blog should include a color of the day. (Interpretative, but bonus points if a swatch of the color is included)
  2. The color should be a reference to a blog occurrence or the song of the day
  3. There shall be a song of the day, linked, with song title and artist in the description. (Sometimes the link dies, and the description helps us find it later.)

This is inspired by my love of dialed the color memorization game, and the fact you can color swatch your own photos.

Song of the Day:

You know, I just see horses and I know there’s a way.

Horses by Maggie Rogers

MagAO-X 2025B Day 20: Head in the clouds

Dear Vizzy,

We missed you! It’s been a whole MagAO-X observing run since we last saw you. We checked every day on our way up, but it seems like you were busy with other business.

Señor cleanroom Vizzy.

Last night, or morning? We had our last hurrah in the control room.

Everyone in the control room one last time.

Our take down crew went to bed early, but the night crew holdouts worked on Sebastiaan’s targets until the clouds told us it was time to pack up.

Clouds through the moonglow.
“How am I expected to work in these conditions?”

The night crew’s responsible for shutting everything down, and tucking all the cables away before craning operations start. Though I’m sure you’ve heard us up to this before.

Face of a man about to take darks.
The optimal position for deconstructing MagAO-X earthquake preparations

You might have seen quite a few cars swinging up and down the road to the cleanroom this morning. Josh and Parker were running up and down on errands before then we fully swapped with the day crew. I’m happy to report that both crews got a filling and balanced breakfast.

Rolling out the electronics rack.
Unhooking the control room.
An emptying NASE platform.

How did the day crew do? I heard they had some trouble with the bolt holes in the legs. Thank goodness the LCO crew is around to help when nuts get stuck. As you must have seen, MagAO-X is back in the clean room in good time. Some of us are sticking around one more day to attach all the sensitive parts and make sure it’s ready for remote observation.

Pondering above the fog.
Evening walk to the small scopes.

I hope you’re staying warm with all these clouds coming through. We got one good walk in before they fully swallowed the mountaintop. The moisture in the air was just enough for us to finally smell the flowers. Also we finally had some free time to smell the flowers.

Geometry measurements of CLIO.
All packed up for the trip to AZ.

Don’t forget to say hi to Manny! It’s been a while since the last time he was here but we promise he’s friendly. He just got here yesterday, but he’s already gotten so much of CLIO into a box.

The clouds finally covering the mountainside.

Sorry for all the noise by nap spot in the eves. I promise things will start to quiet down soon. Till next time,

Eden

P.S Song of the Day

Great No One by The Beths

P.P.S. Fun Fact.

Did you know that Seattle, USA has more cloudy days than London, UK?

P.P.P.S. Laird said to tell you hello.

MagAO-X 2025B Day 9: The swing of things

If there ever was a day to wake up for lunch, Sunday is that day. While we all placed our much anticipated empanada night lunch orders, nothing beats the pastry goodies paired with the lunchtime soup choices.

Empenada de mariscos e Caldillo de Congrio.

Though delicious, the prize lunch came at the cost of some significant sleep debt for members of our crew. Nevertheless, we rallied, drank our little coffee drinks, and went right back up the hill for an afternoon of testing, bug fixing, and poking around on the internal source. I have no photos to show you the productive daytime endeavors, but I do have the motivational poster now stuck to the control room wall to sum up the energy of the participating members.

“Look at me, 4 hours of sleep and fresh as a lettuce”

Turns out if you wake up early enough, you can have a whole day before your observing work day. Enjoy these vignettes from our afternoon on the mountain.

A spurned pet.
A lush path.
A longing view.

Our empanada appetites did not overwhelm our TO Rebecca, who was able to muscle our nighlunch up the hill. We arrange the spread to remind ourselves of the richness and abundance of life.

The first big LCO empananda order of the run.

The first half of the night was shepherded by Parker, Katie, and Josh. We’re back on tau Ceti with the bells and whistles (iEFC dark holes and almost all the datastreams writing). The seeing gave us a good reason to work a little extra on internal source set up before it settled down to a fairly typical if a bit bumpy LCO night.

Seeing so bad they did not anticipate needing to plot it.
Locked in and focused

At 1am, Parker and I switched. This was actually a big night for me! Though I’ve assisted with observations at telescopes since I was 19, this is the first time I’ve gotten to take data for my own science on my own proposed-for time. I always try to be a diligent AO operator, but it feels different for your own data. (The difference is anxiety.)

Our time on Beta Pic is split in two goals, firstly to try to push into bluer wavelengths (r’ band) where the contrast of Beta Pic b depends on the kind of atmosphere it has, and secondly see if we can observe the closer in Beta Pic c at all. Thank you Katie and Laird for installing the ri beamsplitter cube that makes these goal somewhat simultaneous.

The PIAA engineer at work.

Since Beta Pic c is so close in, and given all the good PIAA work from yesterday, we used the PIAACMC to improve our inner working angles. Thank you Elena for her PIAA expertise, and Tiffany for sticking it out with us for the rest of the night. We wrapped up not too far after our TO gave us the 15 minute warning.

Miles did not lock in on photoshop for his masterpiece to fail to make an appearance on the blog. The whole team in one photo! How lucky to be planet hunting with them all.

Play “spot the difference” with the Day 7 photo.

Fun Fact: Pablo Neruda’s favorite soup

As Duo Lingo likes to remind me, I really need to work on my Spanish. As I was ordering my soup, the chef very excitedly explained something I only vaguely understood to be about Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet. I since learned, and now you will know this too, that the soup from lunch today was popularized by Neruda’s “Oda al caldillo de congrio” (Ode to Conger Chowder). The conger chowder is one of many everyday items Neruda romanticized in his series of Odes, among soap, socks, and salt. It is considered today one of the most popular Chilean dishes, partially because of his love for how it represents Chile.

“… deliver
the treasure to the flame,
until in the chowder
are warmed
the essences of Chile,
and to the table
come, newly wed,
the savors
of land and sea,
that in this dish
you may know heaven.”
– Pablo Neruda

Song of the Day:

Wait what do you mean Katie hasn’t used a Stroke’s song yet?

The Strokes – Someday

Sagan Summer Workshop 2025: Silver Jubilee, yipee!

Imagine, if you would, the beautiful Caltech Campus. Imagine, if you would be so generous, a population of exoplanets. Imagine, if you would be so kind, the beautiful minds of exoplanet scientists convening for the 25th year in a row.

That should put you in the mood for this very hypothetical blog post. Both in that the SSW of 2025 was about exoplanet populations, which inherently include speculation and projection, and also in that I forgot to take any sensible photos, so you’re going to have to paint some mental images for yourself.

The beautiful Caltech campus. Theoretically filled with exoplanet enthusiasts for the workshop.
(Photo courtesy of Gabe Weible)

The crux of most SSWs are to help younger generations of researchers connect with a topic in exoplanets through lectures and hands on activities. Discussions are more fundamental than you would get from a typical conference and talks are staged to build on each other throughout the week.

This year was a celebration of hitting 25 sagan workshops, and so was an overview of how each detection method has aided our understanding of the whole of exoplanet populations. Take a wild guess at the favorite plot….

THE observation demographics plot. Plot taken from Christoph Mordasini’s “Demographics Synthesis” Talk

The best part of the Sagan Workshop series is that they’re truly meant to be a resource. There are no registration fees and all the talks are posted online after. So I’ll present my chef’s choice from this year with links if you’d like to relive it yourself.

Slide from Josh Winn’s talk on Transiting exoplanet surveys.

If you’d like to know more about the biases in transiting exoplanet surveys, I highly recommend Josh Winn’s talk Twenty-Five Years of Transiting Planets (Video). He steps through a map of our transit detections through the years and different missions, which really helps contextualize how mission planning shapes the science we use for demographics. The selected slide above is, admittedly, a spoiler for to his very well-crafted narrative.

How many of these have we pointed MagAO-X at?

Of course, I’m contractually obligated to serve up the Direct Imaging talk on this menu. Not only because it really helped put my own work in context, or that all our favorite systems got a shout out, but the speaker Eric Neilson is a former Laird grad student. Check out Eric’s run down of the state of the feild here: Detection Techniques: Direct Imaging (Video)

Tim discussing what affects the certainties in astrometry measurements.
(Slide from Tim Brandt’s talk)

Tim Brandt’s talk on absolute astrometry finally got me to understand exactly what the hub-bub around Gaia is about. Tim turned my vague notions on astrometry to appreciation for the nuances and limitation of the genre. Highly recommend this talk for a brush up: Detecting and Weighing Exoplanets with Absolute Astrometry (Video)

The quilted together occurrence rate conclusion for this demographics talk.

Finally, I really enjoyed Brendan Bowler’s talk on Gas Giant Demographics (Video). We talk a lot about the distinct populations each technique can study, but this was a really interesting way of tying what each technique gives us for a given population. Gas giants at different separations and ages are approached in different ways, but are quilted together in a great summary here. The talk is also just very expertly crafted, an instant resource.

In addition to the educational talk series, there were also posters and short advertisements for poster pops. I gave my poster on the direct imaging work MagAO-X has been doing on Beta Pic b. Imagine I gave a poster pop and had actually taken a photo, it might look something like:

Apologies to my friend Shishir, who was originally the subject of this image.

I also had great conversations over the poster session, across a variety of active research projects. With some stretch of the imagination, that poster session could have looked something like:

A satisfying update on our Beta Pic b Project, pushing bluer than any other project has gotten on the darling hot Jupiter.

It’s true that this year was not necessarily the most on topic for us, but the workshop was a good reminder how far the field of exoplanets has come in my lifetime, and how bright the future is with Gaia DR3, PLATO, HWO, and more.

Song of the week:

“Sagan’s Song” by Emily Davis