Eden McEwen – Extreme Wavefront Control Lab

MagAO-X 2024B Day 6: Making Rainbows

Last night, after such quality science, and the night before with rapid fire engineering accomplished, tonight was set to be a good mix of the both. Jared engineering in the early eve and Sebastiaan reanimating the Vis-X visible spectrograph for the rest of the night.

Alas, the mountain had other ideas for how we should be entertained. But what’s a crisis to this elite team? What’s two? What’s three? We are robust, especially with a remote PI directing us like agents on chessboard. Today we survived a glycol booger, a power outage, and mysteriously missing vis-x camera software. Ultimately, it’s not a novel crisis that dampened the night, but our old enemy atmospheric seeing.

We did not get Jared to show up on an iPad quickly enough. — The strong, independent, folks keeping MagAO-X running. They don’t even have their PI on site.

Golden hour is for making your telescope look dewy. — The strong, independent telescope that keeps MagAO-X running. It doesn’t even have it’s TO on site.

Wakey, wakey, rise and shine, the computers are at 99 (deg C). Do not fear, the timely work of Parker and Jay before dinner, in which they had to squeeze the tubes and flush the filters and whatnot, halved the temperatures our control computers. Computers which we would prefer to not live at boiling temps.

who was cooking with our CPUs? — Fig. 1. One should observe a sharp spike to 100 degrees, a gap as the computers went down for tube repairs, and then a much cooler system post fix.

The glycol team triumphantly entered the dining hall before service stopped, a real win considering how often we miss dinner for these kinds of things. The night was off to a good start with clear skies and decent seeing for the first few hours of engineering. By the time engineering wrapped up, things were looking very un-twinkly.

This DIMM number, for those who don’t live their life by them, is very, very good.

Next up, Sebastiaan. Which required half a ~~postdoc~~ professor in the instrument to shift the optics into a Vis-X configuration. Fingers in the blackbird pie, if you would. His spectrograph disperses visible light from 400-900nm in both low and high resolutions modes.

And then things got dark. Literally, the power went out for a good minute. It’s on again, off again, on again. But MagAO-X? It stayed on. A testament to ol’ reliable, the UPS’s. Almost simultaneously, Joseph sprinted to get camera software back where it should have been on ICC. No really, we should all be impressed and very grateful the whole thing didn’t fall apart. Take a bow, take a bow, take a bow.

Back in action, we were pumped to start seeing the spectra roll in:

Katie is impressed. Or humoring me. — Locking in on the first spectrograph target of the run.

This binary isn't even invented by our optics! — The binary loud and clear on the spectrograph

But then we started to look more like this:

sebastiaan doing his best meme face. — The face you don’t want to see sebastiaan make when the data comes in.

For no good reason, the seeing spiked. And when we say spike, we mean a dramatic 0.6″ to 1.7″ swing. And then we were looking at the DM struggling. The seeing was so unfriendly that even our backup backup engineering targets weren’t interested in the 6.5m telescope.

Don't mind Clay in the red, her shack hartman was being dramatic. — When the seeing gets above 1.5, MagAO-X starts to mock us.

This didn’t stop our tenacious dutchman from exposing till civil twilight.

See also his big smile! — See: The pink of pre-sunrise in the open door.

All things considered, it was a night. We’re still adjusting to the sleep schedule, and the people are sleepy. Enjoy some photos, and we’ll see you tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll get more of the 0.4″ nights and no more of this 1.2″ nonsense.

AO Affirmation 1: The winds are coming from the north, the winds aren't too strong, the winds aren't too wet.

AO affirmation 2: The DMs are healthy and happy.

AO affirmation 2: The are no clouds on the forcast.

AO affirmation 4: The cleanroom vizzy is back. And he is happy. He is peaceful.

Bonus: inaccurate quoting

Thanks to Elena’s camera enthusiasm, we now have a little piece of midnight whimsy captured. For better or for worse. Hover for some choice quote picks that have been randomly assigned.

“Do you want to do actual work or do you want to be a professor?”

"it's one of my mantras that dripless connectors aren't"

Thanks Elena! Thanks everyone for having no filter at 3am! or 3pm!

Song of the Day

As per the rules, lyrics from the song of the day can be found sprinkled throughout the blog.

Faust Arp by Radiohead

SPIE 2024 wrapped

For a little while in June, the gang was all back together for SPIE Tokyo. Almost felt like an observing run, but in Japan, and every telescope team you ever heard of was also having their reunions at the same time.

Here’s a round up of all the MagAO-X and friends talks, posters, and proceedings. (Check out Katie’s MAPS blogs for some of the real time updates during the conference.)

sweaty and ready — Day 0 at SPIE, badges aquired. Left to right: Prof. Sebastiaan Haffert, Katie Twitchell, Dr. Joseph Long, Josh Liberman, Warren Foster, Eden McEwen

Our line up of MagAO-X talks:

MagAO-X Commissioning talk by Jared Males

Camera resolutions these days are just so impressive

MagAO-X: Commissioning Results and Status of Ongoing Upgrades
arXiv:2407.13007 [pdf, html, other]

Neural Nets on MagAO-X by Rico Landman, talk given by Sebastiaan Haffert

Not the proceeding, but some of the work done on this project can be found here:

Closed-loop demonstration of neural network wavefront reconstruction with MagAO-X
arXiv:2401.16325 [pdf, other]

Challenge of direct imaging of exoplanets within structures: disentangling real signal from point source from background light
arXiv:2407.13756 [pdf, html, other]

Optical Gain Calibration work by Eden McEwen

On-sky, real-time optical gain calibration on MagAO-X using incoherent speckles
arXiv:2407.13022 [pdf, html, other]

Machine Learning + telemetry by Joseph Long

More data than you want, less data than you need: machine learning approaches to starlight subtraction with MagAO-X
arXiv:2407.13008 [pdf, html, other]

MagAO-X Posters:

a little sweatier than they may have hoped, but it all works out in the end — The Hero’s Journey to get your poster printed in Japan.

1k DM characterization work by Jay Kuney

MagAO-X Phase II Upgrades: Implementation and First On-Sky Results of a New Post-AO 1000 Actuator Deformable Mirror
arXiv:2407.13019 [pdf, html, other]

Analyzing Misalignment Tolerances for Implicit Electric Field Conjugation
arXiv:2407.13199 [pdf, html, other]

Improving coronagraphic performance with active atmospheric dispersion control on MagAO-X
Stay tuned for the proceeding!

GMagAO-X Presentations:

High-Contrast Imaging at First-Light of the GMT: The Preliminary Design of GMagAO-X
arXiv:2407.13014 [pdf, html, other]

High-contrast imaging at first-light of the GMT: The PDR optical and mechanical design for the GMagAO-X ExAO system and results from the HCAT testbed with an HDFS phased parallel DM prototype
Stay tuned for the proceeding!

High contrast WFS architecture for by Sebastiaan Haffert

High-contrast imaging at first-light of the GMT: the wavefront sensing and control architecture of GMagAO-X
arXiv:2407.13021 [pdf, html, other]

Wait, what’s that Golden Ticket?

Did you see that, the golden ticket on Sebastiaan’s poster?

Golden ticket for Lego ELT sets courtesy of the Netherlands contingent

If you recall, the Dutch have a history of bringing out the Lego big guns for SPIE. (See: lego JWST at SPIE 2022). This year they’ve gone even bigger with scale Lego models of the ELT! But, instead of the first 200 interested parties, these were exclusively given out to participants with stunning social media posts. Or very good persuasion skills.

Turns out we had an in with a sympathetic ear. And I got to make up for my lack of Lego two years ago:

willy wonka dejavu — A win for the office!

In a fairytale ending, the ELT has made it home to Tucson and is in good company with our GMT model.

NOT TO SCALE. unfortunately — Left: GMT, foam model. Right ELT, lego model

& the MagAO-X Friends

Of course, we are lucky to also get to see our office neighbors and collaborators present at the conference too! We did not capture them all, but this is a conference that scientifically feels like home (maybe too literally).

Sebastiaan’s collaboration with the Santa Cruz testbed.

Warren Foster, Alum, talking about mirror fabrication for LFAST

Lauren Shatz, Alum, talking about LASSIE at Space Force

Katie Morzinski talking about MAPS commissioning

The End.

Cheers to a good conference and good work by our team!

Oli actually goes to UA too — UA team photo: Josh, Joseph, Katie, Eden, Jared, Jay, Jialin, Laird, and special guest Olivier!

Song of the week:

Love Letter to Japan by the bird and bee

Congrats to our 2024 Grads!

XWCL has a lot to be proud of this graduation season. Our best and brightest donned their funny hats and walked across their stages. What? You haven’t seen their defense blogs yet? Shhhh. The actual degree part, they’ll get there. Today is for celebrating!

First up was the Optical Science graduation.

Maggie and Co. lining up for their PhD walk!

Maggie Kautz getting hooded by Dean Koschel and Advisor Laird Close

Katie Twitchell, Valedictorian, giving the convocation address.

Next up was the ceremonies at the Steward Observatory:

We wish them the best of luck in their future work!

Congrats on the Academic pageantry, and we can’t wait to see you all defend!

Song of the Day

For the Time Being by Sammy Rae & The Friends

MagAO-X 24Ab Day 15: Time to roll out

Last time, on extreme.ao: We were still having weather. Your AO operator valiantly tried to lock the loop on a 10th magnitude star through patchy cirrus before our observers took pity and let us switch to something brighter. But finally TO Hernán got the call, stepped outside for some professional cloud watching, and the dome closed at around 11pm. The first shift crew trickled out, the second shift trickled in, and I got caught somewhere in between taking calibrations on our internal source. I took the bright moon walk down the hill, appreciated what I could of the night and the cold before finally heading to bed at 2am.

Magellan Clay is open, but at what cost? — The patchy clouds responsible for our WFS’ variable flux.

Best dark hole of the run. — A moon bow! Just the right thickness of cloud to get a ring of scattered light from the full moon.

The take down crew (Laird, Logan and I) caught up with the returning night shifters (Jared, Joseph, Jay, and Josh) at breakfast. (Am I self-conscious about being the only violation of the first letter name crew segregation? A little.) Turns out we did reopen! Around 3am the clouds cleared enough for us to rush to the transit for Gabriele’s early morning target. Only for wind to spike and seeing go from 0.8 to 1.5as soon after. Just before sunrise, they called it, and started the decabling soon after. Gabriele, though not captured, helped out too. A champion among guest observers. You’re welcome back any time, Gabriele!

Yo who closed last night? - affectionate <3 — DM decabling in the wee hours of the morning.

Night crew, full of orange juice and toast (as per PI procedure), headed for bed while us day crew revved our way up to the mountain. We only realized how much we had to thank the decable crew for when we rolled up to the platform. They had made our jobs a walk in the park. Cables and electronics box already down on the dome floor, the cart ready to go, with the bumpers out of the way, MegaDesk completely dismantled int the control room. They won’t always tell you they love you, but there will be signs.

We still had plenty of work to do to get out of the telescope’s way by noon, when the next night’s instrument would be rolled into our place. Yesterday we met before dinner to go over the procedure, and this morning we expertly executed said procedure. Except a few bolts that felt especially sticky (*COUGH* legs side B outer bolt *COUGH COUGH*), the cart and lifting hardware behaved itself beautifully.

How many pixels would a Laird pic if a Laird pic pixels pick? — At the briefing yesterday, everyone was very briefed on the new lift position.

Do I always hold the cart handles so I never get asked to do the cart bolts? No comment. — I hold the instrument steady as the cart gets assembled.

This is a three person job. Laird to know what to unscrew, Logan to catch what falls, and me to vaguely hold a flashlight in the right direction. — Laird and Logan reattaching the hardware that keeps pur instrument safe from earthquakes.

Juan and his crew helped us go from legs to cart, cart to elevator, elevator to 40ph wind tunnel, to the final tour town the hill. Laird was there to help oversee the careful maneuvers with our precious wheel-bound table of optics. He was also there to document just HOW MUCH WIND we’re talking about.

The wind was so strong it knocked over Laird!

tbt when these mountains were brown like a week a go — Baade, snow capped mountians, an AO instrument on the move.

moments before almost disaster (the electronics rack wheels getting ruck on the ramp) ((they're tiny ok??)) — Movign the electronics rack back to the clean room.

Where were Logan and I? Frantically shuttling computer parts, cables, and all our other bits and bobs out of the telescope and down the hill. We try hard to be polite and get MagAO-X junk out of the control room ASAP. As it happens, ASAP turns out to take 3 car trips of stuff and gets us done just before lunch. And MagAO-X is back where we want it, cozy and protected from the elements in the cleanroom antechamber.

now that's a good wrap job — Everyone is back in the cleanroom, and room temperture.

AND POOF. We’re back! Actually after lunch I fell asleep for an exertion-induced nap, during which Laird, Juan and crew got us back on legs and back in action. The afternoon was full of unwrapping, dusting, power supply ~~cursing~~ musings, and positioning MagAO-X where it will live for the summer before we come back down for 24B.

Two professors power posing, you better feel reasured of the future of AO. — MagAO-X positioned in the cleanroom to maximize 1) sharable space with other isntruments and 2) sticker visibility.

What does it take to get MagAO-X cleanroom ready? A lot of organizing, reshuffling, and repeating steps we did on the telescope platform. There were a few special quirks with the new placement in the cleanroom and making sure everything got the power it needed.

A timelapse by Jay of Laird floating the table. Watch that control loop work!

Two lamps were moved, but not harmed, for the making of this new inferior workstation. — The mega desk downgrade, in which Joseph talks sense into AOC.

Some of the crew (Jared Jay Josh – J^3) will be staying an extra day to make sure everything is in good condition for our summer remote ops. As for the rest of us, this is our last night at LCO for the 24A runs! For the special occasion, we made sure that we took a last sunset as a team, with a special surprise for Jared.

I think the glasses look most natural on Jared, don't you? — The largest sunset group photo. See reflections for a captured Josh.

The glasses looked so good, how could we not take a few extra shots?

Best 15 minutes of the day? Finding out there was pizza for dinner, eating pizza, thinking fondly of the pizza, and getting a second serving of pizza. But of course, the pizza tastes better with the laughs shared at dinner with our AO family.

Song of the Day

Today’s song brought to you by the bitter sweet of leaving the mountain after a hard run.

Head in the Clouds by The Beths

MagAO-X 2024Ab Day 9: “I don’t think you want that data”

Thank you for tuning in for “Eden’s screenshots of the firewalled LCO weather page.”

I spy with my little eye Kian's new slack-moji — Bright eyed enthusiam coming to you straight from the AO operator desk.

I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that we are open! The bad news? The seeing is just on the edge of usable. And by “on the edge” I mean we’re getting something on the science cameras… but it’s the kind of data we dread to process. What a tease.

On top of that, the wind is whistling something fierce. Like living next door to a two-note pan-piper. Every 5 minutes, Maggie-O-X will announce that we’ve hit our wind limit, just for the wind to slink back down again. Like a threat that it could shut this whole operation down, clouds or not. We thank Carla for being a merciful TO, and we are planning on allocating portions of our empanada orders tomorrow to her, accordingly.

"Does ANYONE want this 6.5m telescope?" — Seeing and wind plots at the time of reporting.

Did I forget to mention that I have worse news? In a novel first for this team, we are expecting rain. Yes, in the Atacama Desert, that gets an average rainfall of 15 mm a year. We found it, folks. The one day of rain a year. Stay tuned for the MagAO-X raincoat wrappings.

The first time I have seen precipitation on the LCO meteoblue weather page.

Weather like this could really get you down, but luckily we have a great team that keeps even these kinds of days full of laughs and good stories. Our night started with high hopes. Since the sky was clear and the winds were low, the walk to the telescopes was appealing for the first time in a week. Some of the team caught a crisp green flash on their way up.

As an early-shifter, I’m headed to bed, but I know the control room is staying merry with Alycia wisdom, Jared sea stories, Joseph whimsy, and Josh punchlines that are actually just events from his life. All as it should be.

more of these please. — A beautiful, cloudless sunset.

No one told you, but this is the MagAO-X uniform — Logan breaking in new hiking shoes

it's liek that optical illusion, can you tell which way we're standing? — Logan breaking in new hiking shoes

Best 15 minutes of the day? Filling out the night lunch for 4 whole empanadas. Just like the boss ordered.

Overheard at LCO

“I struggled with the scissors unit in kindergarten”
won most improved on MagAO-X scissor duty

“As long as I’m not playing a sport I won’t get injured”
“Why would you say something like that”
someone who could definitely get injured in offseason

“I will be Clay’s Gollum”
someone with career ambitions

“Keep the icc data away from the tea.”
“How about you keep the tea away from the icc data.”
not all of us have Sebastiaan level tea charisma

“I wasn’t allowed near the model trains because I kept wanting to touch them”
still let near our picomotors as a trust exercise

Song of the day

This one isn’t my pick. It’s Clay’s.

Danny Boy – Sinéad O’Connor