Author: Jared Males

The Picard Principle states:

“It is possible to commit no mistakes, and still lose.”

My wrap-up posts have always been somewhat triumphant. But not this time, ‘cuz that just sucked.

To be clear the MagAO-X team did what they always do, and the instrument was ready to rock like we always keep it. We’re all just bummed that we didn’t get to let it off the chain to go hunting planets and disks and other exciting things. We just sat there, sometimes actually hiding under a blanket.

A quote:

“Laird and I agree that this was the worst continuous stretch of bad seeing we have seen in all that time.”

Morons. Apropos from this run:

“Why would you say that?”

It can always get worse. One’s dome has to be open for one to measure seeing. As I type this in my room, body trying to decide what schedule we’re going to follow tonight, my window is vibrating as the wind climbs and the stars fiercely twinkle.

As Leden said, Jay, Josh, and I stayed an extra day to get one more Empanada Sunday.

Since we were here, and to make sure it was a business expense, we did take the time to re-cable MagAO-X. Best 15 minutes: split over two 7.5 minute moments when the MEMS deformable mirrors came alive with no problems and we didn’t have to re-cable.

We’ll be back, probably in November. In the mean time, MagAO-X is available for any eXtreme Wavefront Control experiments you have. A few of us will stop by around September to tighten some bolts, etc.

Don’t worry. It can always get better too.

I must confess, I still believe.

I was home in Tucson for about 5 minutes after the last run. So I only managed to get all of my laundry done all at once just in time to pack for this trip. Upon doing so, I discovered that I was missing some socks. This happens to all of us, dryers being constructed the way they are, and I normally don’t expend much energy on it.

However, this time one of the lost was a brand new wool sock I bought especially for LCO, and I knew I was headed into this:

So I was disappointed to lose my new sock that I’d gotten to wear once or twice on the last run (and an older one too), and worried about potential for cold feets.

But then I did my first round of laundry, and had the bright idea to look in the cupboards above the washing machine… AND I FOUND MY SOCKS YOU GUYS!!!!!

Thanks to whichever denizen of LCO took the time to stow my socks for me.

We had an impromptu birthday celebration for Logan tonight, organized by Eden. Singing, dancing, homemade card, and fruit snacks for all.

Laird has been busy packing up the venerable MagAO ASM, getting ready to send it on its way to its new life at the LBT. I booted up the old control computer for MagAO-C, and it came right back to life.

Being weathered out has some advantages. Olivier made us a new toy, which lets us look at the timing of our system in 3D. This movie shows the response of the MagAO-X wavefront sensor to a deformable mirror (DM) poke as a function of time. Key fun feature: the DM actuators move in a raster pattern, and it takes about 100 microseconds for the whole DM to move. You can see that in this movie.

Best 15 minutes of the day was plugging in the MagAO computers and remembering how it all worked, seeing them boot again, figuring out how to remember the password, and logging in to see an old friend.

How windy is it?

When the door to the Babcock lodge is held open by wind blowing through, you know the domes aren’t open. (that’s a day time pic, but you know what I mean)

Luckily Jay and I were snug in the cleanroom almost all day, getting MagAO-X setup for some alignment and calibration work. We started right after breakfast with Juan and Felix and Miguel, and got MagAO-X craned onto its air legs. We then spent the rest of the day connecting stuff.

At the end of the day we had the loop closed and the nice PSFs. Tomorrow we get to work on repeatable alignment procedures and more robust calibrations.

My favorite 15 minutes was after connecting the last cable for the 2K DM, and running the tests to verify that each actuator was functioning, and having it work on the first try – no re-cabling needed. The 1K worked on the first try too, but it always does.

The song of the day is “Act of Approach” by The Dead South.