Katie Twitchell – Extreme Wavefront Control Lab

MagAO-X at Spirit of Lyot 6: The Haunting of Baxter Hall

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA – Every few years, an eclectic group of scientists and engineers gathers in a scenic location to discuss the minutiae that come with taking pictures of really dim things next to really bright things. The Spirit of Lyot conference is named for one Bernard Lyot, a French astronomer known for inventing an instrument to observe the Sun’s corona without having to wait around for a solar eclipse.

Early on in the conference, one of the organizers clarified that this gathering was about Lyot’s “spirit” meaning legacy, not his literal ghost. Now, we here at MagAO-X most certainly honor Lyot’s high-contrast legacy by observing binaries, disks, and planets. But, it’s also worth mentioning that if there’s one thing optical engineers are haunted by, it’s ghosts.

For those unfamiliar, a ghost is a technical term used in optics to describe an unwanted reflection. Put simply, this could be anything from seeing your own face reflected back at you when you’re trying to look out the window to having your laser bounce back off lenses it’s supposed to transmit through. Optical ghosts are pernicious little things; they can cause unwanted spots on your camera or even render your g-band filter practically useless. They’re difficult to get rid of, but pretty easy to introduce. So, in order to understand Dr. Bernard Lyot’s true opinion of MagAO-X’s contribution to his conference, I have taken it upon myself to summon his (optical) ghost this Friday the 13th and ask about his approval or disapproval on some things we did last week.

Look, you can either judge the cleanliness of my laptop screen or you can admire my commitment to this bit. Up to you. — whether or not this is *technically* a ghost is up for debate, but I certainly consider seeing myself in my laptop screen as an “unwanted reflection”

APPROVED: A Plethora of Posters

From graduate students to postdocs, Lyot agrees we kept MagAO-X well-represented at both poster sessions throughout the week. In no particular order:

if you actually think i'm going to put hover captions on all of these you're crazy

i admire your persistence — And this isn’t even all of them!

DISAPPROVED: Yassification

“Mais c’est quoi ça??”

-the spirit of Lyot, upon being shown the AI-yassified versions of our poster presentation photos

Out of respect for him (and Hayao Miyazaki), I will not include them here.

APPROVED: Talks on Talks on Talks

During the instrumentation sessions, we found ourselves well-represented. On Thursday, Jared talked about next-generation HCI with GMagAO-X, Laird got the chance to talk about WISPIT 2b, and Miles did some polarimetry show-and-tell about some disk observations. We also got to hear talks from Rico, Louis, and Adam, members of Sebastiaan’s group in Leiden, and Saraswathi, a postdoc from UASAL.

if you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it

On Friday, Josh told us about the highs and lows of building the Self-Coherent Camera on the CACTI testbed, and Sebastiaan closed out the MagAO-X talks by giving an overview of the many, many emerging technologies in our field.

feat. the wii remote-esque laser pointer

DISAPPROVED: Upside-down Glasses

A couple of us took the chance to tour NASA JPL, which got a seal of approval from both the four of us and the Spirit of Lyot. However, he (rightfully) poked fun at the picture of my failure to understand how 3D glasses work.

still out there somewhere — our girl voyager

APPROVED: Family Dinner

The conference dinner was held at Caltech’s Athenaeum. Not everyone could make it (places to be, e.g. Target), so we made sure to get a family photo beforehand.

the average height of our group has definitely increased since our last photo

"what's a torte?!" -anonymous — say cheese!

peep some Leiden friends in the background — say cheese!

DISAPPROVED: Etiquette Ignorance

I have no visual to illustrate this, but let’s just say Parker and I exchanged a very panicked glance when we saw the number of utensils we were expected to use at this dinner. Luckily we had a couple of former Navy Nukes to teach us the difference between a salad fork and a regular one.

APPROVED: Astro-tourism

If you believe his Wikipedia page, Lyot was also an avid mountaineer and even trekked to the Pic du Midi observatory when it was only accessible by cross-country ski. Naturally, his spirit approved of the group that stayed a little bit longer to make the journey up Mount Wilson.

DISAPPROVED: A Seat-cushion Mishap

Ever wondered why, during the standard aircraft safety briefing, they tell you to ask for assistance if you lose an electronic device in your seat? Well, I no longer wonder that. Let’s just say the pilot himself came out to help at one point. The important part is that Josh and his earbud were reunited, safe and sound.

APPROVED: Song of the Day

In the spirit of Lyot: a French song that talks about both the Sun and finding something that exists, but was hiding:

Solarium – Radio Elvis

MagAO-X 2025B Day 11: Abstraction

We’ve really settled into a rhythm here on the mountain top. While our individual wake-up times vary, we all mosey on down to the lodge for dinner at around 6:30. After an unfailingly excellent meal (and perhaps a cup of tea), the first shift of AO operators make their way up to the summit and start aligning MagAO-X for the night. The TO opens the dome, we set up our observations, and then we spend the night doing cutting-edge science and engineering until the Sun threatens to peek above the horizon. It’s not without hiccups–the atmosphere doesn’t always behave and neither does your code–but it’s honestly impressive that we’re able to pull it off night after night.

dad, if you're reading this, i get my absent-mindedness from you — a fox yells at me for forgetting my glasses in my room (again)

if you squint maybe you'll see a planet — a fox yells at me for forgetting my glasses in my room (again)

Tonight had its ups and downs but overall fell nicely into that rhythm. While I revised my SPIE abstract downstairs, Parker and his crew did another round of Tau ceti observations. I made it back for Eden’s observation block, which was filled with complex coronagraphs, art criticism, and cat photos. We were also able to commission our Lyot low-order wavefront sensor (LLOWFS, pronounced yo-fuss), which uses rejected starlight from a reflective Lyot stop to control our non-common-path DM. The result is more stability in the coronagraph, which makes finding planets easier. Atmospheric seeing was … not great for the first little while, but our noble efforts to press through were rewarded with an incredible second half of the night. Our data were stellar, in both senses of the word.

we miss you Jialin :( — powerful women of MagAO-X

eyebrows raised higher than that seeing plot — caught off guard

At least to me, at this point in the run Tucson starts to feel a bit like a dream. Maybe it’s because I’m avoiding yet another controls assignment, but something about this mountain makes the rest of the world feel less concrete. You walk outside, and the moonlight illuminates the peaks in the distance; you walk inside, and you see a team of people all working towards the common goal of seeing things no one has seen before. Perhaps I’m over-romanticizing because I’m running on very little sleep, but you can’t deny that there’s a unique feeling here. It might just be the reason we come back night after night, run after run, year after year.

Fun fact of the day: the painting “Sailor Boy” by Columbian artist Fernando Botero hangs in the Tucson Museum of Art.

Song of the day:

This Night Has Opened My Eyes – The Smiths

MagAO-X 2025B Day 1: Reanimation

This is now my fourth(!) observing run, and they’ve all had a unique flavor to them—but if there’s one thing I can count on, it’s sleeping like a brick the first night at LCO after 30+ hours of travel. This morning the three of us were feeling sufficiently back-from-the-dead, and we hit the ground running on getting MagAO-X ready to be on-sky this Thursday. We started out with some plumbing, removing the pink goo that builds up in our glycol filter and giving it some brand-new o-rings to prevent leaks. Once we confirmed cooling was up and running, Parker took some time to work on his accelerometers while Jared and I brought stagebs back to life:

I don't have any pics of us stagebs-ing so you'll just have to take my word for it — “I’m acc-ing!”

goop! goop! goop! goop! goop! goop! goop! goop! — “I’m acc-ing!”

After lunch I took some time to hide in my room, stare at plots of Xs and Os, and question the stability of both my control systems and possibly my own mental state (the timing of this midterm was kind of inconvenient). At about the same time, two wild postdocs appeared, one of which had gotten much more sleep than the other. The more well-rested postdoc and I took a walk up the mountain and we introduced him to the cleanroom, the library, and most importantly, the espresso machine.

The rest of the afternoon was spent aligning Miles’ polarization generator so that we could capture nice flat fields on both the camscis. Not too bad for having only been at LCO for a few hours.

dual handle tripod for extra maneuverability — a polarizing figure

camacq do be acq-ing — a polarizing figure

We haven’t yet been graced by the presence of cleanroom vizzys, but Carlos el culpeo was feeling mischievous and photogenic tonight, and we are all the better for it.

looking down at his subjects — why hello up there!

someone's been feeding you eh — why hello up there!

Random fun fact of the day: did you know that one of the world’s largest viruses, Megavirus chilensis, was discovered in water samples from the coast of Chile in 2010 and is larger than many bacteria?

Song of the Day:

Bring Me To Life – Evanescence

AO Summer School Part I: Santa Cruisin’

Don’t worry, folks–we’ve heard your begging and pleading for more XWCL #blogtent, and the time has finally come. This blogbuster series will come in (at least) three installments, each from a different POV, as we embark on our one-week AO crash course here at the University of California, Santa Cruz. We’re pulling out all the stops: a brand-new cast of guest stars, some of the old regulars, top-tier science, and (with a little luck) a banana slug or two. Buckle up.

No, seriously, buckle up. It turns out that Highway 17 between San Jose and Santa Cruz is no joke, and we were in for quite the ride to UCSC campus. California traffic may be a little foreign to me, but even I could tell that something was up as our Uber driver bobbed and weaved through gridlock in residential neighborhoods for the first 20 minutes. Turns out there was a wreck blocking all traffic down the highway and into town, so our driver did what any rational driver would do: he put the car in park, set his iPad on the dashboard, and we all watched Happy Gilmore 2. If you haven’t seen the movie, I will say that I believe dashboard iPad (with the addition of both Spanish subtitles and English Audio Description) was the way the director intended for it to be seen. No photos were taken of this experience, so you’ll just have to trust me–it was ethereal.

Day 1 of summer school was all about introductions: introducing ourselves to the other participants, introducing the instructors, and introducing the foundations of adaptive optics. We’ve quickly made friends with AO aficionados from all over: Canada, Hawaii, Australia, Finland, and South Korea, to name a few. Josh and Parker really hit it off with some new non-human friends as well.

seriously i haven't been this cold in months — reveling in the luxury of wearing hoodies

i thought they were joking at first but i guess not — reveling in the luxury of wearing hoodies

Parker and I got to give 1-minute pitches for our posters, which will hang up all week as fuel for discussions during coffee breaks:

he got his laminated just to one-up me — yay for matching MagAO-X templates!

The agenda was packed: In the morning, Dr. Rebecca Jensen-Clem gave an overview introduction to Adaptive Optics for astronomy, and we played a card game themed around closing the loop on an AO system at Gemini North.

optical alignment is a lot easier on paper — was I a little skeptical about this idea at first? yes. did I end up liking it so much i kind of want to make my own? … perhaps.

In the afternoon session, we had a crash course on geometric and physical optics by Dr. Renate Kupke as well as an intro to AO for vision science by Dr. Nicole Putnam. We learned a ton about the human eye, and about how to look cool in silly glasses:

it's negative--you can tell because everything is in focus in the background too — quick quiz: is it a positive or a negative lens? (answer in hover text)

with this combo, he can look straight into your soul — quick quiz: is it a positive or a negative lens? (answer in hover text)

The day rounded out with a reception at the Center for Adaptive Optics, where two very exciting things happened:

1. We got to use a really nifty wavefront sensor system to measure the aberrations in our own eyes. We’ll get to use the aberration maps and Zernike coefficients calculated by the system in vision science workshops later in the week. This is the kind of geeky biodata I absolutely love. Who else out there gets to measure their eye’s PSF?

finally we get to look straight into the laser — not pictured: parker being informed his pupils are enormous

the stare is deadly but the eyes are aberrated — not pictured: parker being informed his pupils are enormous

2. There was a cheese platter. There was a large cheese platter. There was a large cheese platter that remained mostly untouched throughout the evening. I’m pretty sure you can guess who volunteered to bring the extras back to his dorm. A dream come true.

in which josh's head functions as the O in Optics

Since this is the first blog post of this trip, I get to make the rules. I’ll keep it simple and on theme: since we’re enjoying the lovely geography so much, the song of the day must be related to California in some way.

Old Hollywood – Julian Casablancas

MagAO-X 2025A Day 21: MagAO-X Wrapped

If you take a step back and really think about it, the way we celebrate birthdays is pretty weird. Wearing a conical paper hat? Lighting a small fire atop some food and then immediately blowing it out? Sitting awkwardly while everyone in a room sings to you? If you think a little too hard about birthday traditions, they’re all a bit strange.

Maybe that’s how we tried to justify the ritual we put Matthijs through on his birthday. Sure, craning and cart-building and wrapping a one-ton instrument in saran wrap and emergency blankets is a little weird. But hear me out: if you look at the big picture, it’s not so much more bizarre than party hats and birthday candles. Plus, I’m certain what we unwrapped today was orders of magnitude more expensive than any birthday present any of us has ever received.

I’m talking to you from the perspective of the day crew, who went to bed while the night crew braved the last few (not ideal) hours on-sky at the telescope. Laird, Elena, Matthijs and I were up bright and early to begin the process of moving MagAO-X from the Nasmyth platform down the hill to its temporary home in the cleanroom. This involves hard hats, steel toes, and a whole lot of bolts.

... because we didn't have to deal with last night's seeing — all smiles

it's hard to keep them on when you're laying on the ground installing earthquake bars! — tbh i wish our hard hats had a chin strap

put your thumbs up if people accidentally keep referring to you as a grad student! — tbh i wish our hard hats had a chin strap

We had gone over the procedure with the LCO staff the day before, so the day’s craning operations went smoothly. Before we knew it we were loading the instrument into the cleanroom, followed by the legs and the electronics rack. After some more craning, cart disassembly, and an unexpected battle between the instrument’s caster wheels and the cracks in the floor, by 3pm we were ready to pass the baton back to the day crew.

i like to think of this room as "the airlock" because of the double doors into the cleanroom situation — a beautiful gift ready to be unwrapped

nakey — a beautiful gift ready to be unwrapped

They expertly finished what we started, cabling up all our electronics, including the DMs, in record time.

looking a lot more enthusiastic after a few hours sleep

yes, that is a national treasure quote — “How do a bunch of guys . . . build all this?”
“The same way [people] built the pyramids, and the Great Wall of China.”
“Yeah. The aliens helped them.”

After this, a few of us are staying an extra day to set up remote ops so we can keep working until we see each other again at LCO for 2025B. We’ll be far away from each other, but we promise not to be distant.

Song of the Day:

Plantasia – Mort Garson