From the long days comes an even longer night with the first engineering night of the run. What follows is a brief recount of the 24 hours spent getting MagAO-X running. Today started bright and early with getting MagAO-X up the mountain.
The final 200 meter climb resulted in the instrument finally getting to the summit and installed. The final vertical climb up the elevator was the fastest process of the whole day! It only took a mere 2 minutes, time lapsed in a cool 12 seconds below.
Once on the platform a myriad of tasks were then taken to get it into place. Starting with disassembling the cart and getting it onto the legs. After giving MagAO-X its legs back and getting it into its final position Warren, Eden, and Avalon graced us with this musical number, dubbed “Carol Of The Safety Toe Shoes”, to commemorate the moment.
After this great composition the group aligning the instrument took a break as the Baade telescope posed for us! (It totally wasn’t because of some press)
After seeing BAADE the team took a slight detour into the auxiliary building, specifically to see where the primary mirrors of the Baade and Clay telescope are re-aluminized. The students had fun with the acoustics!
We of course had to be inspected by the burros, they approved of our work.
And finnally after a long day of work the day ended and beckoned forth the night. So, as is per tradition, the team got together and was able to get one final photo with the last vestiages of light.
And thus as day faded into night we continued to work. There were some communication issues that were still working on, but Warren was able to align PIAA. We were also able to get on sky later in the evening. The image below is an image of our first target of the run Theta 1 Orionis B.
So with a long 12 hour work day which continued into the night we were reminded of the song “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey. As even though the team was presented with different challenges through the day; we never stopped believing.