Author: Joseph Long

Today we got up early (3:00 P.M.) for a tour of the Giant Magellan Telescope construction site, arranged by our fearless leader.

We met with architect Francisco Figueroa at the site, who was happy to show us around—as soon as we put on vests, hard hats, gloves, safety glasses, a high-visibility safety vest, and safety-toe boots. (We had foolishly left ours on the other mountaintop, but fortunately they had a whole closet full of brand-new safety-toe boots.)

Thanks to The Covid-19 Situation and These Unprecedented Times (and their friends Supply Chain Disruption and Financial Constraints), work has been stopped for a couple of years. This meant that the main thing to see was a hole, soon(ish) to be filled with a concrete giant telescope pier.

It was windy as heck up there.

After another delicious dinner, we went up to the Magellan Clay telescope to begin operations. It was still pretty windy… and seeing wasn’t great… so we listened to Magellan sing in the wind.

Our observer this evening, Dr. Alycia Weinberger, is a good sport, and was happy to hang out on Zoom with us even though we couldn’t get locked on to her target just yet.

After a while, we did get back on target, and Jared experimented with ways to push MagAO-X in poor seeing conditions. We can’t reach our most demanding performance targets, but we were pleasantly surprised by our performance in these challenging conditions (in these unprecedented times).

Even though we did not get our 0.4″ seeing (who do we talk to about a refund?), we were able to have some fun. For example, we were served butts for our night lunch sandwiches. (Perhaps tomorrow we’ll have grilled eggplants and peaches for dessert.)

As I write this Alberto, our telescope operator, has just asked us if pointing into 30 MPH winds is okay. Veterans of MagAO will recall that suspending a complex instrument over the primary led to some paranoia over wind speeds. Fortunately, MagAO-X is in no danger of being blown off the telescope.

The P.I. made a great discovery tonight! He just discovered that we have an extra night of telescope time (going by the official schedule), totally overturning the previous scientific consensus on which day we’re moving our instrument off the telescope. Stay tuned for the Nature paper.

Song of the Day

A recent Tucson Sentinel music column highlighted new music by a Tucson local band named Annie Jump Cannon, which I felt compelled to check out.

If you’re not familiar, their namesake was the first person to figure out a sensible classification scheme for stellar spectra, at a time when women were not offered the same opportunities in science as men. (We still use her classification scheme today.)

The band, as far as I can tell, has no professional astronomers in it. (Phew.) In possibly related news, the song’s pretty good too.

When installing an instrument on a research telescope, the astronomers and opticians must transition from a day to a night schedule. This happens with an early start and a very (very, very) long day.

09:15: Crane operations begin at the cleanroom building

10:00: Bubble-inhabitants go to get nose-poked in exchange for their freedom

10:30: Formerly bubbled individuals encounter Gary Guanaco on their way back to the lodge

10:32: MagAO-X gets reacquainted with the Isuzu flatbed for its ride up to the telescope

12:00: Top Gun theme plays

Technically, since they were riding down the lift, the theme should be reversed:

12:40: Hunt for wild viscachas at the summit

(The hunt was unsuccessful.)

12:45: Boldly push the envelope and go to lunch with less than covid-mandated one hour offset from the crew (in the interests of getting back to work faster)

12:45 – 13:15: scarf down your lunch and get back because the crew’s lunch break is long over and they’re lifting the instrument already

14:00: Crane operations continue, now with a different crane

14:30: Crane operations conclude, alignment team springs into action. Meanwhile, MegaDesk is reassembled in the telescope control room.

14:35: MegaDesk experiences intense jealousy when confronted with UltraDesk, the Telescope Operator’s workstation. P.I. immediately orders more monitors.

14:35-17:45: Fine alignment proceeds

17:45-18:15: Dinner

18:37: sunset

18:43-23:51: cabling

22:00: Deformable mirror cabling begins

22:33: Deformable mirror cabling ends

00:01: Opening the dome

Taking some infrared astronomer data.

00:41: Light down the pipe, kinda

00:41-5:15: “For technical reasons it is not possible to determine all possible error causes”

No pictures exist of this inauspicious time. However, Laird did borrow my tripod and later send me this photograph, which he called “possibly the only data we will take tonight.” We at MagAO-X would like it to be known that, this time, it was no fault of our own.

05:16: Light down the pipe

Hey, time to start our night!

5:53: Loop is closed with 1000 modes

06:58: Sunrise

08:06: Going to bed

Song of the Day

I’ve been waiting a while to use this one on a blog post. Vaguely Depeche Mode-y, but contemporary. Song of the day is “Dot in the Sky” by Drab Majesty.

We’ve got MagAO-X mostly re-cabled in its temporary home in the LCO cleanroom, and Doctors Close and Knight are fresh off the plane and working on the optical alignment. But, earlier, we had a fun discovery: the instrument control computer (ICC) was getting almost no coolant flow.

Yesterday, we did some brain surgery on the real-time control computer. Today was more like heart surgery. We found that although our pump tried its hardest, almost no liquid coolant made it through the ICC, and temperatures remained stubbornly high. In other words, it was clogged. We really wanted the issue to be anywhere except the CPU liquid cooling block, so of course our troubleshooting pinpointed… the CPU liquid cooling block. Not any of the lines feeding it, but the very center of it.

See those three pink hoses in the center, under a bunch of crap? Those go to the blocks we removed. We took the computer out of the rack, the cooling blocks off the computer, then took them both out of the clean room entirely to try and blast the clog free.

But, to no avail.

After consulting reputable YouTubes, we were pretty sure these things came apart. The down-side is, according to the manufacturer, you lose your “leak-free guarantee.” (Well, it’s probably void after 5 years anyway.)

Readers, it was gross in there. We only do extreme adaptive optics, and this was extremely gross.

It turns out glycol does not enjoy being left in tiny channels without moving for a long time. And, while MagAO-X was on its two year shipping hiatus, it didn’t get the same twice-yearly flushing it evidently needed.

Fortunately, there was a solution: graduate student labor!

(Just kidding; it was a team effort.)

After we reassembled and pressure tested and reinstalled everything, we had great flow. We also had just spent a few hours on another unscheduled computer disassembly, and had to hustle to get the system ready for Laird and Justin. Fortunately, it was a two-viscacha day, which boded well for our efforts.

Another of today’s wins was figuring out what the “ultra-wide angle” camera on my phone is for: making an already long advisor look even longer.

Once the computers were back online again, we used 2.67 monitors per researcher in hopes of making everything go faster.

Fortunately, installing all of the cables between the electronics rack and the instrument went great. All our movable bits in the instrument moved when we asked them to, so we had time for a bit of sunset-watching before the clean room became part of Laird and Justin’s quarantine bubble.

I also had a wistful moment, taking a selfie in the tail plate. I definitely did not imagine that I would be the only non-faculty repeat visitor from the original team.

We rigged up a lab laptop (labtop) and left it signed in to Zoom™ so that when Laird and Justin got in we’d see them. We’re remotely supporting their alignment efforts by sitting upstairs with our laptops to move mechanisms as needed. (Or write blog posts, when not needed.)

As I write this, they’re still at it. I admire their tenacity.

Late breaking news: we have pupil images on the pyramid wavefront sensor!

Song of the Day

Your song of the day is brought to you by ~*~*flow*~*~.

(distanciamiento de un metro is distancing of 1 meter, a required anti-COVID-19 measure)

MagAO-X arrived on its truck from Santiago this afternoon, and a familiar team of forklift operators and engineers was here to unload it. The next shift will have some new faces, but this shift was people we knew from The Before Times. We think. They’d grown ponytails and everyone wore masks, so who’s to say?

When I got the message via Jared that MagAO-X had arrived, I was just finishing lunch. While in Bubble Mode™ we have to wait around and hand off our trays to the staff to be returned to the lodge cafeteria, so I said I’d stick around for a few minutes.

Turns out I couldn’t wait, so I wrote some (hopefully correct) Spanish on my health check-in form as a sign for the staff and took off.

And here it is!

You don’t see it? Computer: enhance 224 to 176.

There we go. Right there on the truck. See it? No?

Fortunately, I was distanced by more than the required amount, and I could get closer.

No, closer than that…

Look at those three boxes of big science! But it’s not doing us much good on the truck…

Fortunately, LCO has their own fork lift. And very good operators.

Next, let’s get our electronics…

They set everything down outside, ready for unpacking when we’re out of bubble mode. Fortunately, these boxes were made to be left outside for a bit.

(Not pictured: The removal of a small plastic box containing our operator computer by means of a totally overpowered forklift. Still better than trying to clamber down from the flatbed!)

We did notice some oddities… the couple of missing tip-n-tell indicators indicate someone tipped but would rather not tell. Aircraft takeoff/landing angle, or something more nefarious? Also, something happened to trip the 10-G acceleration sensor in the electronics rack, but fortunately not the 25 or 50 G!

Bonus Animals

Song of the Day

To reach Las Campanas Observatory, of course you must book an eye-wateringly-expensive airplane ticket, but once you get here you must still traverse the Santiago airport, a.k.a. Aeropuerto Internacional Arturo Merino Benítez, a.k.a. Nuevo Pudahuel, a.k.a. SCL.

For important pedagogical reasons (i.e. four more people coming in two more waves) I will describe how it went. And since we hope these measures will relax, and that this information will quickly become obsolete, it’s gonna be a blog post and not a page.

Get from your airplane to Las Campanas Observatory in 13 easy steps!

Step 0: Be prepared

Obtain and/or print the documents you will need in hard-copy:

• Passport — Of course. Make sure that it doesn’t expire any time soon.
• Proof of insurance — you should have this as a letter from UA Risk Management)
• Proof of recent negative COVID-19 PCR test — Use UA Campus Health or the TUS airport testing site if you can. Counting backwards from the departure time of the flight to Chile, the test must have been taken within 72 hours. Bear in mind UA doesn’t administer or process tests on weekends.
• Proof of vaccination previously verified by Chile — You can generate this within mevacuno.gob.cl, using the “Download” button on the “My Vaccines” page. This is the “pase de movilidad” or “mobility pass” you may hear about.
• Declaración Jurada / Affidavit — Go into c19.cl from within MeVacuno for your affidavit. This is the PDF generated within c19.cl for submission to the airline attesting to your vaccination status and ability to enter Chile. Can be filled in up to 48 hours before you are passing through immigration, and requires the previous two documents to be uploaded.

(You will also upload some/all of these to Delta, and may even be asked for them again at check-in if their website goes wonky on you.)

Step 1: Awake with the sun

If you never got to sleep in the first place, this step is very easy.

Time to get off the plane in Santiago!

Tip #1: The first restroom you come to after disembarking turns out to be the last one you can get to without straying outside the rope barriers until baggage claim. That might be a (short) while.

Tip #2: Get your smartphone signed in to the free Wi-Fi, as you will need it to fill out a form later.

Step 2: Follow signs and people to the Control Sanitario phase of entry

Before your COVID-19 entry test, you will be asked to present the identity document you used for enrollment in #MeVacuno, which is your passport (unless you’re Chilean). You will also be asked for your other supporting documents, which will be reviewed and handed back to you.

At the next stage, touchscreen kiosks ask you to enter your ID (passport) number. Take the slip of paper it presents up the ramp to the next desk, where a person will tell you the number of the testing booth you should go to.

Step 3: The test

The test technicians are not necessarily going to speak English with you, but the test works like all the others. Lower your mask below your nose (keeping your mouth covered), get swabbed, replace mask. (Regrettably, nobody’s told them you don’t have to poke people in the brain to detect SARS-CoV-2.)

You’ll get an email soon (probably before you board the next flight) with information on accessing the test results, but note that we didn’t get notified when our test result went from “pending” to “negative”—we had to check the next day.

Step 4: Back to the usual

As of March 28th, 2022, there was a single line for passport control, serving both extranjeros like us and Chilean citizens. I told them I was going to “Observatorio Las Campanas, Vallenar, Región de Atacama“. That’s Las Campanas Observatory, Vallenar (vah-yay-nahr), Atacama.

They’ll stamp your passport. Keep the slip of receipt paper, you’ll need it to leave the country. (Otherwise it’s more annoying and complicated and a fine may be involved.) Fold it and tuck it in your passport if you think that’ll help you keep track of it, but keep in mind you’ll be getting your passport out a couple more times.

Step 5: Customs

The new customs procedure involves a sworn statement, entered online as part of the delightful cero filas (“no lines to wait in”) initiative by the government to computerize every form they can. There’s QR codes around the baggage claim that you can scan that take you to the form, or a .cl address you can type in.

Follow the prompts on the form. As you are not declaring any animal or plant products, you will be issued a result that looks like this when you click to download a PDF. (You’ll also get it as an email attachment from no-reply@digital.gob.cl, but I wanted to make sure I had it.)

Collect your bags. You’ll see a new luggage tag on your checked bag, but do not be alarmed. Follow signs for “nothing to declare,” run the sniffer dog gauntlet, and your next stop is a (potentially virtual) inspection of your luggage. By scanning the luggage tag, they can pull up an X-ray scan of your bag. Neat-o.

If you’re unlucky like me, they will not be able to scan the tag, and will have to paw through the bag anyway.

(This is probably when you’d show the customs declaration to someone, but nobody asked for it. Oops?)

Step 6: Go outside!

You’ll pop out on a lower level of the new building (nuevo terminal internacional, T2). Ignore people offering rides or help and get past the scrum.

Years of experience from the old terminal taught us that check-in is always “up”. Nearly right! We got upstairs and discovered that it’s actually safe (for now) to walk around this new building looking lost. The only guy who stopped to ask if we were fine was a bona-fide airport janitor, who directed us to the building across the way for “salidas domesticas” (domestic departures).

Going up from customs gets you as far as international check-in, but you have to go up and out to get to the old building where domestic flights check in. At the top of the upper-level escalator pictured below, we found an elevated bridge to take us… part of the way across. But at least it went over all the vehicle traffic.

After taking the bridge over the road and elevator down to ground level, we continued straight past the Holiday Inn and into the terminal antiguo (the old terminal, or T1). To enter the terminal, there’s a set of elevators taking you to another bridge over the vehicle traffic (left side of the panorama below, so on your right when you get to the end of the walkway from T2 to T1).

Step 7: Check in with LATAM

Once inside the old terminal, all should be familiar to the old hands in your group. Ignore people enthusiastically offering you assistance, even if they’re wearing a badge. As a general rule, if they’re with the airline, they’ll have an airline logo somewhere on their uniform (and probably won’t be quite so proactively helpful, but anyway…).

If you accept the assistance of one of these “freelancers”, they’ll expect a few dollars as a tip. Some of them can be a bit rude about it if you don’t have any cash.

At the LATAM counter, you’ll check in and re-check bags. Proceed through security. (This is potentially where your pase de movilidad would be requested, but ours wasn’t.)

Step 8. Enjoy the fruits of global capitalism on your layover

You may feel a bit guilty that you went all the way to Chile to consume Starbucks and McDonalds, but consider this:

1. After traveling for the better part of a day, at least you can still feel something
2. This is the last time you can have an unhealthy number of French fries (or fake Italian coffee words in a blender) for a while.

Tip #3: the payment terminal in Starbucks (like many others in Chile) will ask you to choose “pagar con cuotas” or “pagar sin cuotas.” The answer is always “sin cuotas,” but I only just figured out why. With a Chilean credit card, it is possible to spread your CLP$4500 latte over multiple months of payment, with interest owed on later installments. Since debiting your credit card balance happens automatically at the end of the month, this is the only way to “not pay your whole credit card bill”. (Presumably if you ever selected “con cuotas” your American bank would just go “whut?” and the transaction would fail.)

Step 9. Spot a cargo plane

Step 10. Get to La Serena

You’ve found a gate and boarded a plane before, right? It works just like that. Short flight, too.

Step 11. Catch a (COVID-19 mitigation enabled) ride

After you collect your bags, a driver arranged by Las Campanas will be waiting with your names on a sign. Last connection: made!

At the guardhouse we saw Carlos Culpeo’s cousin Cornelio caper around the car craving snacks.

Step 12. Get in your bubble! Go on, now!

Someone will meet you or otherwise communicate your room assignments so that you do not enter the main lodge. You may have a paper version of the LCO daily health check-in form to complete.

Next, snacks.

Step 13. Wait until you may rejoin society

Get your room set up nicely, do your daily health check-in, check if your PCR test has been processed (and is, hopefully, negative). Work on stuff with your bubblemates. Enjoy the only time LCO has ever offered “room service.”

Ta-dah! Only 13 easy steps.

Song of the Day

The P.I. couldn’t even manage a day 0 blog post, so he has forfeit his right to impose arbitrary song of the day rules this time. Also, it’s gonna be 30 days, so let’s keep things simple.

I don’t know what river he’s singing about, but we’ve gotta be south of a bunch of them by now.