Author: Katie Morzinski

The MagAO project’s first on-sky results!

The MagAO project put together an instrument on a shoestring budget from borrowed parts, to observe one of Nature’s most beautiful spectacles:

Approaching sunset at LCO

The solar eclipse!

We built a pinhole camera using an obsolete cable bulkhead, an authentic piece of MagAO hardware.  We call it the MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer.  You can see the cable bulkhead below, in this photo of the PI and Instrument Scientist who did all the planning, design, and prep work with the hardware.

Dr. Katie Morzinski, PI and Jared Males, Instrument Scientist

The instrument passed internal Feasibility (FDR)/Conceptual (CoDR), Preliminary (PDR), and Critical Design Reviews (CDR) this afternoon.  There was no Pre-Ship Review (PSR) because we hand-carried the instrument from the Aux building to the dining hall.  Integration and Testing (I&T) was completed in the afternoon at the Aux building by the PI and Instrument Scientist.

The commissioning and observing run began immediately after everyone finished eating a delicious dinner together in the LCO dining room.

Software and operations were provided by Tyson Hare.  He first upgraded the detector from a wall to a sheet of paper, and then commissioned the instrument outside…

Commissioning the MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer

…then took it inside to the LCO dining room, where the curtains could be drawn to reduce the ambient “dome” light.

Optimization of the MagAO Solar Eclpse Viewer

Here is Tyson operating the MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer detector:

Tyson Hare operating the detector

Laird Close operated the pinhole camera:

Dr. Laird Close, camera operator

We simulated the eclipse with a 100-peso coin, to test our optical design and alignment:

Simulation of the solar eclipse, on a shoestring budget

A lot of the LCO staff and other LCO observers joined in on the fun!

LCO enjoying the solar eclipse

Here we show the entire instrument and overlay the light path:

Light path of the MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer

It was only a grazing or nibbler eclipse at LCO, and here are some of the best images we got:

Solar eclipse images
Eclipse through welding glasses

It was a lot of fun, and we hope you enjoyed the first on-sky results by the MagAO project!

The MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer

Clio handover

Tuesdays are when LCO staff swap shifts.  A meeting is held with all technical staff, who share information in order for the handover to go smoothly.  This afternoon, the instrument staff who are keeping Clio cool met to show each other how it works.

Clio handover 1
Clio handover 1 - Victor Meriño, Mauricio Navarrete, Alan Uomoto, and Gabriel Martin
Clio handover 2
Clio handover 2 - Mauricio Navarrete, Jorge Bravo, Gabriel Martin, and Alan Uomoto
Clio handover 3
Clio handover 3 - Victor Meriño, Jorge Bravo, Gabriel Martin, Emilio Cerda, and Mauricio Navarrete

 

Clio handover 4
Clio handover 4 - Gabriel Martin, Jorge Bravo, Mauricio Navarrete, and Alan Uomoto

First MagAO arrivals

Alan, Jared, and Katie arrived today as the first of the MagAO commissioning team.  We stopped at El Pino before heading up to the mountain.  Here are Jared and Alan with the eponymous tree:

El Pino
El Pino

La Serena is a beautiful beach town, and we couldn’t decide whether it reminds us of San Diego, Santa Cruz, or San Francisco.  You decide:

La Serena
La Serena

And here’s a picture for our various mothers and other followers who are fans of the many gorgeous flowers that are in bloom in late Spring in Chile:

Spring flowers
Spring flowers

Finally, we made it up to Las Campanas Observatory.  We saw our old friend Vizzy.  We also saw the sunset when we went up to visit our telescope, the 6.5-m Magellan Clay:

Katie at Clay
Katie at Clay

We went up and powered up all the motors and computers, and everything is working fine!  Clio is cooled and doing great.  Tomorrow we will attend the LCO turnover meeting, meet the staff, check up on our instruments and stages, and get prepped for the arrival of the PI.

Clio, 2012/11/12
Clio, 2012/11/12

Clio2 Gets The Freeze

After shipping, unpacking, and verifying that everything still works, the last step was for Manny and Richard to cool Clio2 down. Then they took some pictures.

Manny celebrates after taking a good, low-noise, pupil image. He and Richard just successfully cooled Clio2 down to operating temperature and confirmed that the detector works.

Since it works in the IR, basically detecting the heat of planets and brown dwarfs, Clio2 is kept very cold. This is because a blackbody at room-temperature emits most of its energy at a wavelength of about 10 μm, according to Wien’s law. A lot of flux from the tail of the distribution is also emitted at near-IR wavelengths of 1–5 μm. Therefore, for IR astronomy, it is important to keep the telescope and the instrument cold, to avoid this excess thermal flux, which shows up as noise in our images (you’ll hear us call it “sky” or “background”).

To make this work, Clio is contained in a dewar, which is a kind of vacuum flask (a.k.a. Thermos) — an insulated canister that keeps cryogenic material at very cold temperatures. Clio2 has a nested-dewar design with an outer and an inner vessel. The cryogen we use is liquid nitrogen, which has a boiling point of 77 K stp. We also lower the pressure in the inner dewar, using a vacuum pump, in order to solidify the nitrogen (55 K). A blackbody of 77 K emits most of its radiation at ~38 μm, and a blackbody of 55 K emits most of its radiation at ~53 μm. These wavelengths are well beyond what we care about when hunting planets.

In case you ever find yourself in charge at LCO, the cooldown steps and instructions for refilling cryogens are also posted in the Clio user manual.