MagAO-X 2024Aa Day 16: Summer time at LCO

After a long time, MagAO-X has arrived at Las Campanas, bringing the full team and others partners. It is a crowd that keep you alert all night long. 

This past Summer 2024 we were visited by several “friends” coming from the valley and also from high mountains. Apart from burros, vizcachas, we had “crias de cóndor y guanaco”, also a solitaire zorro. 

They were flying over our heads and moving around us without caution as if they knew we were not going to hurt them.

The condors are young as you can notice, on the neck will became a thick white collar and the guanaco, more than five at that time, you can see the fur is curly, later it will became smooth keeping almost the same colour.

This zorro was looking for something to eat, I can imagine, far from his home.

As you can see on these pictures and videos, they look so magnificent living on their natural environment, clear blue skies, pure air.

Guanacos were protected by others adult guanacos. Condors, we did not see adults, those are rare to came down.

There were almost four months of warm days and pleasant nights. It would explain why so many “visitors” we received.

And we still can see all of them around the site !!!

Some of those are here:

I have you to enjoy the song of the day, which is of course, El cóndor pasa.

It is a well known song whose original version from 1963 belongs to Los Incas voices. Remind you the Andes mountains, here at South America, involves the whole latin america people at this side of the world.

EL CÓNDOR PASA (VERSIÓN ORIGINAL)- LOS INCAS

2015B Día 34: Última noche en LCO.

He revisado las Reglas del Blog y nada dice sobre el idioma que debe utilizarse. Por eso, lo haré en español, una licencia para el último día del equipo MagAO en el Observatorio Las Campanas.

Aún no se sabe si viajarán a Santiago en bus o avión, la huelga terminó esta tarde.

Durante las 33 noches de observaciones más las noches previas y posteriores nos deja muchas satisfacciones, como Operador de Telescopios Magallanes hemos podido vivir los avances que se lograron día a día (osea noche a noche), superando dificultades técnicas, sufriendo el clima y obteniendo datos de alto nivel científico.

Este run hemos apreciado fotos muy variadas y novedosas, flora, fauna, Luna, telescopio, instrumentos nuevos, astronomía, clima, comida, paisajes desde el Observatorio.

Difícil competir con algunas imágenes pues mis fotos son de un iPhone 3, igual me atrevo a compartirlas con Ustedes. Les he puesto nombre para identificarlas.

1. Naturaleza y tecnología. El brillo que se aprecia al medio de la foto (algunos milímetros) son un array de paneles solares.

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2. Naturaleza y tecnología. Aquí tenemos la Luna, cóndor chileno y la tecnología de un camión-grúa.

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3. Naturaleza y tecnología. La Luna desde el interior de la cúpula del Baade.

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4. Naturaleza pura. Cóndor chileno.

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Me preparé varias veces para elegir la canción del día, basándome en la de la noche anterior.

Comencé con la confusión que siempre tengo entre Ella Fitzgerald y Aretha Franklin, cierto que los nombres no se parecen pero igual me confunden.

Considerando Stars Wars y La marcha Imperial pensé en “Starman” de David Bowie, además que me recuerda a mi adolescencia y los sueños con el futuro, qué había más allá.

Ya no está relacionada con la noche previa pero igual la incluyo porque es un clásico.

Brian ha elegido “Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain. Es una canción de la película Fantasía de Walt Disney. Me gusta también por los recuerdos de infancia.

Considerando que un antiguo Operador de Telescopio ha pasado por todos los estilos musicales que nos traen los Astrónomos, he pensado en seleccionar música clásica, si me permiten.

Pequeña serenata nocturna de Mozart, primer movimiento (Allegro). Me parece que es el más conocido.

Nos vemos el próximo año: 2016A

That’s all Folks!

2014B Day 30: Longer Night Shift of the year

Ending last night, I left the telescope thinking of what to share on this blog, driving “home” (Nagoya Palace). A cute shot shaped the place where we stay half of our life.

“Nagoya Palace” from the road.

"Nagoya Palace" from the road.
“Nagoya Palace” from the road.

 

Day 30 is not from a regular night shift, longer than my 12 days a long time ago. Even though, this week has been a quite shift. Thinking of Christmas next month. You have 12 more nights to be here, working with  this amazing MagAO instrument and Clay Telescope.

Night shifts in astronomy.
Night shifts in astronomy.

Clouds make every sunset different from any other. Shapes, colours, angles. Even more when Moon is slightly with us. Well, unfortunately the thick clouds came soon tonight,  stopping observations for a while.

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Clouds at the end of the week.
Clouds at the end of the week.

Jared noted yesterday the Vizzy appearing. It is common to see vizcachas around Magellan Telescopes, but not often they show us for long time to take pictures. In this ctime, the vizcacha was seating waiting for the sunset. They like to do that, sometimes alone others you can see 2 or three of them.

Where's Vizzy?
Where’s Vizzy?

So, starting to relax after all, I have a gift for you: Night Shift – Bob Marley