Jared Males – Page 39 – Extreme Wavefront Control Lab

Comm2 Day -2: El Zorrito

Today was somewhat eventful. There was some more guider housekeeping, and some work on VisAO software, and a few other odds and ends. We also saw a rare member of the LCO zoo today at lunch.

get the gas out — It's time to start the process of cooling Clio down. The first step is to pump it down, and that got started this morning.

it was pretty smelly — The primary didn't get washed today after all. The sink had to be cleaned first, to get some residual oil off. Here's Tyson going to work on it.

get the dust off — Instead of washing the primary, the telescope itself got a thorough cleaning.

a can of soda — The inside of the aluminization chamber. This contraption vaporizes aluminum to recoat the mirror.

uomoto was here — Though the primary didn't get washed, other mirrors did.

A family of Guanacos came by the aux building today. There were a couple of little ones trotting along with the herd.

The big news of the day is that I finally saw Zorro. A fox ran by the lodge during lunch and caused quite a commotion.

h.p.o.t. — This is the North end of a South bound Zorrito. Once it realized it was being watched it took off - but not too fast.

just minding my own biz — I of course only had my cell phone camera, so I didn't get very good close ups.

shadow — The fox blends in with the countryside really well. No wonder I haven't seen one before today.

new home of the spinning knife edge — Tonights sunset is indirect - that's the Horace Babcock lodge catching the last rays of today.

Comm2 Day -3: moving the primary

The Clay telescope’s 6.5m primary mirror is getting a bath tomorrow. So today it was lowered out of the telescope, and moved into the aux. building. Not something you see everyday.

cartzilla can only dream — The 6.5m honeycomb mirror, inside its cell (the white cylinder), after being lowered onto its cart.

british: aloo-MI-num — The surface of the mirror. This picture is normally almost impossible to take.

wide load — Here the mirror is making the journey into the aux.

Alan and Tyson did some guider housekeeping today, covering up some pesky LEDs. I turned the W-Unit on and made sure everything still works. No problems!

that's a nice tail — Vizzy definitely knows when he/she gets noticed and is having a picture taken.

by the light that never warms — Waiting for the sunset.

the wild — The view off the back of the mountain, right at sunset. It was cloudy all day, but it is clearing up tonight.

didn't see a flash, but I was in a hurry — Our nightly sunset.

Comm2 Day -4: again back again

The “advance team” arrived at LCO today to begin preparations for MagAO commissioning run #2. Alan, Tyson, and Jared made the long overnight journey from the USA, accompanied by Povilas and Mark Phillips who were returning from the Magellan SAC meeting.

Grande still means Grande — Tyson getting recharged in Santiago.

smooth — The first part of the road has been freshly paved. The rest of the way is . . . still bumpy.

After a delicious LCO supper I went up and looked everything over. Here are some of the important things I checked:

oh no. not you guys again. — Vizzy watched the sunset with me.

the intersection is wide open — Our frisbee was still in its hiding spot. Need a few more players though.

safety first — Our various caches of gear are still in place.

And of course, I took a stroll around the mountain to see how things are without us.

thanks man. couldn't have done it without you. — Andrew Carnegie, ladies and gentlemen.

we're being taunted — Posted without comment.

ecofriendly — To decrease plastic water bottle waste, you now get one of these nice Al bottles when you show up, and there are filling stations everywhere.

ahhhh. feels like home. — No MagAO @ LCO post is complete without a sunset from the catwalk.

Sometime in the last 24 hours the moon flipped over on me. — I don't see the comet.

it's a short hop from there to Trapezium — That's moonlight on Baade. That's Betelgeuse above and left of Clay.

Follow the LBTI

Hi MagAO fans, it’s been a while since we’ve updated our blog. After we recovered from our month on the mountain, and got through Christmas, New Years, and the start of the new school year, the team has jumped into processing all the fantastic data we got from MagAO, Clio, and VisAO.

In one month, we’ll be back at LCO doing our thing. It’s a little shorter run this time, but still more than three weeks.

While you wait for us to get back to work, you can get your cutting edge high-res/high-contrast science fix at the LBTI blog. There you can see how MagAO teammates Phil Hinz, Vanessa Bailey and Andy Skemer are doing at Mt. Graham in Arizona.

MagAO Commissioning Day 29: The After Party

We’re off the mountain! Laird, Katie, Jared and TJ finished putting MagAO to bed yesterday, and made the journey down to La Serena. We spent one night there, and with Laird’s folks took some time off to celebrate.