Jared Males – Page 10 – Extreme Wavefront Control Lab

MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 0: The Arrival

MagAO-X is now at Las Campanas Observatory! The truck finally made it up the hill at about 3 pm, and we got all of our boxes safely off.

if you have to point out your detection it's low S/N — The truck appears!

blue is our wavelength preference — This is an “air ride” truck. Look at all of our stuff!

soon — MagAO-X with ultimate destination in view.

should have done a before and after grey count — The big box coming off — I was pretty nervous during this step…

Things are pretty busy, with MagAO-C and now MagAO-X unpacking. There are lots more cool pictures, but not enough time to post them.

vizzy with a view — I spotted a viscacha hanging out on the ASB upper level.

I am bound by the blog rules to give you Brass Monkey, by The Beastie Boys.

MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day -1: Almost There

Well we made it through customs, and are on a truck. We expect delivery of MagAO-X to LCO around 2 pm local time tomorrow afternoon.

Otherwise, it was all MagAO-C all the time.

spy cam — I learned about the dome camera today. You can see Katie and Alex at the lower right, they’re working on Clio’s cables.

no snuggles — A cuddly looking vizcacha. They are almost tame this year.

never the same again — If the drive goes smoothly tomorrow (which given recent luck, keep your fingers crossed), this is the last sunset at LCO without MagAO-X (for a while).

If you’ve ever been to an NBA game, you’ll recognize this song. If MagAO-X arrives safely, I plan to make Laird, Kyle, and Alex perform this dance to celebrate.

MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day -2 (-1?): Santiago!

MagAO-X arrived in Santiago yesterday! There’s even a chance that it gets to LCO tomorrow. My plan has been to call “Day 0” the day it actually arrives, so maybe we have to reset the blog counter.

Alex v2 and Kyle arrive today. Other than Jared and Laird worrying about it, no MagAO-X work was done today.

So here’s another sunset panorama.

from outside the rail — This one is from the back deck of the lodge.

The goats are a new thing for us. We always see them on the drive, but only lower down. They poop everywhere.

The last several days of being unable to get any information about where our precious cargo was has been pretty maddening. It’s 2019 … almost 2020! One expects to not go 5 days without a status update. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I knew that it had officially arrived from our friends here hours before they updated their system.

The song of the day is Gaga’s Telephone. The blog standards committee won’t let me post the official one, so hopefully this works for you.

MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day -3 (estimated): Still Waiting

MagAO-X is probably in Santiago. But the shipper isn’t updating their website, so . . .

We unpacked some stuff that we shipped down to help with MagAO-X, so it wasn’t all MagAO-C.

it took 5 minutes — Unpacking counts as work on a project.

we can make mega desk now — Hopefully this stuff has a reason for being here.

pretty horsey — Some horses are hanging around the lodge.

I always feel like I'm going to blow a knee when I do this — Sunset panorama from the lodge from last night.

The MagAO-X song of the day is Alive, by Pearl Jam:

MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day -4 (estimated): Waiting

Laird and I arrived back at LCO last night. It’s been 18 months since we were here. Lots of little changes, and some new faces around the mountain — but it’s mostly the same as it ever was.

We’re supposed to be unpacking our new instrument MagAO-X. But . . . our shipment has been delayed by the goings-on in Chile. We also have to get MagAO-Classic back up and running, so I guess that’s what we’re working on right now.

where's Lairdo? — If you look hard enough, you’ll see Laird pointing at the sign for the domestic terminal security sign. All of the parts of Chile that we interacted with seem normal, if maybe a little less crowded due to the holiday weekend.

nice to see you — Our old friends, Clay and Baade. Looking good.

well, it's post sunset — Our first LCO sunset in 18 months

we missed you guys! — A cleanroom vizcacha!

they're tame this year too! — And another one!

We’ve been working on MagAO-X so much that MagAO-Classic seems just a little bit unfamiliar. Now that we’ve spent a day getting the ole’ system back up and running, it’s easy to see how much of MagAO is in the new MagAO-X.

MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking: Blog Rules

The following rules will be followed on the MagAO-X unpacking run. There is a MagAO-Classic run going on at the same time, which will have separate rules.

(1) There will be a blog post each day

(2) Each blog post will have a song of the day

(3) The MagAO-X song of the day must be related to the MagAO song of the day from the latest MagAO@LCO blog post.

The last time we were are LCO, we (Laird, Joseph, and I) had a extra arduous trip home. We finally made it. But now that we’re back at LCO, it’s like coming home the other way.