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MagAO-X 2024B Day 17: Is this the second to last observing night?

It’s been almost two weeks since our first night started. We have been through many adventures and there are two more nights to come. Today was an eventful day and night. Today is our last night with an engineering block. Elena and I had to tumble out of bed to do some daytime engineering. Astronomical instrumentation is not a typical job from nine to five. The engineering is for a new coronagraph, the Self-Coherent Camera, that we are developing for MagAO-X and I am excited about its prospects.

Here you see a typical astronomer during the day outside of its normal temporal habitat.

The Self-Coherent Camera creates an self-referencing interferometer out of starlight using a coronagraph mask. This allows us measure the amplitude and phase of the electric field of the star! If the electric field is known, we can destroy it by injecting the opposite electric field (in phase). This technique is called Electric Field Conjugation or also known as digging a (dark) hole.

A successful demonstration of digging a dark hole with the self-coherent camera.

After dinner with went on-sky and first did some ADC engineering for the one and only Katie Twitchell. The atmosphere is a real piece. Not only do we get all that turbulence, we also get a lot of differential refraction. This messes up our images by dispersing them. Luckily, after the engineering observations of today we know how to fix the last residual bits!

The second engineering task was applying the SCC on-sky and trying to diggy diggy dig a dark hole. This proved to be tricky because of the large amount of fast seeing. The digging did not pan out, but we were able to get other interesting on-sky observations. Such as this image of Alpha Eri.

Elena taking data of her observations. It is clear that taking cellphone pictures is a better way of recording groundbreaking results than using the actual cameras.

After the engineering it turned into a night for our Michigan collaborators. Sadly, the seeing picked up again and we gave up roughly 2/3rds into the night. This allowed us to try something never done before with MagAO-X. We tried to observe solar system objects! We imaged Neptune (very badly) and Europa. It was a fun experiment.

OMG. The first solar system photons that MagAO-X captured!

While the night continues I have to swing off. From today on, Elena and me will be switching to a day schedule to finish day time engineering and to prepare for instrument de installation on Friday (which is tomorrow!). So thank you for keeping up with our blog and we are almost done. Hurray!

Today we have a song that is a tribute to dark hole digging.

MagAO-X 2024B Day 16: The end is in sight

Three observing nights left! Wait actually just two! We love it here, we really do. Our TO’s are lovely, the company is great, and the science is incredible (especially this run). But there comes a time in any astronomer’s trip where we start gazing wistfully out to the sunset horizon and thinking longingly of the family and beds and cats waiting for us back home.

For the first time in WEEKS our last days at the LCO hotel are on the board.

First, a moment of mourning for our fridge hoard of empanadas that only survived one night of cleaning crew scrutiny. Though we did not get to enjoy as many of you as we wanted, know that you were loved while we had you.

silver nuggets of cheesy gold
Buddy system for the empanada toasting.

The main course tonight was a VisX sandwich, with a filling of Jaylishus. Luckily, we’re getting good at swapping between normal operations with our imaging cameras and the spectrograph, and overheads are dropping across the board.

The CamSci’s have a warning yellow border if you dare take data without including them.

We looked at some sources that were sure to illuminate the high resolution grating. These systems are easy for our AO system to lock onto, but high spatial resolution data is immediately interesting, or “astrophysically unsettling” depending on perspective.

Data from RAqr, showing bright H-Alpha emission lines from an otherwise dim companion bright dwarf.
Some simple line broadened absorption lines in the big beautiful mess of AO loops.

VisX imaging on such bright targets requires only a few exposures for noise, and we spent the first few hours merrily jumping between targets and interrupting our good TO’s naps.

Midway through the night, the seeing seemed to say we had overstayed our welcome. We went from a variable, but usable seeing to “AO system can’t operate in these conditions” and “it’s amazing that we’re making an image at all” in a short 30 minute span. Just in time for observer handoff.

Sebastiaan very cleverly traded his time from 2:30-5:30 UTC to Alycia.

Needless to say, we didn’t have much science we could do with chart breaking seeing. We got as far as acquiring, but the star was so far spread around the coronagraph (when we could even close the loop at all) that the hour was chalked up to wash. So we got up to some hobbies in the down time.

IR shot of our telescope mid observation by Joseph.

Two teams competed heartily on both the Wednesday and the Sunday crossword. Neck and neck, brains were steaming. But in the end, who can really say which team won, especially when one team refused to screenshot their times.

team control room
team downstairs

Alycia graciously handed back the telescope to Sebastiaan, and more visXing occurred. Also more neural nets. And perhaps even some trapezium camsci calibration. It feels like we’ve been here forever, but it still surprises me that we have just two days to wrap up this run.

Leaving you with some more peaceful words. Because I’ll be thinking of them even when I’m gone.

Song of the Day

Ok I didn’t do a great job with the quotes this time. But sometimes you just want a song with a beat.

Holding On by Tirzah

MagAO-X 2024B Day 15: Sharp Stars, Sharp Minds, Shared Moments

The first time I operated a professional telescope, I was 17 years old; I did it for 9 years at the Cerro Tololo Observatory. Later, I continued my professional astronomy career, traveling the world until three years ago when I finally landed at Las Campanas as an Instrument and Operations Specialist for the Magellan Telescopes. Yet, as fate and vacations would have it, I found myself back in the operator’s chair last Tuesday, temporarily filling in for Carla while she enjoyed a well-earned break. And so began a week with the MagAO-X team.

The MagAO-X team doesn’t just occupy the control room—they own it, both in spirit and sound, filling the nights with a stream of ideas, laughter, and cutting-edge science and technology. This shift, we enjoyed some truly exquisite seeing, sharp stars at their best under a spotless sky (most of the time), mixed with the excitement of students and supervisors over their successful experiments and observations. Between moments of scientific triumph, we soaked in the hues of sunset skies  and occasional green flash, navigated a maze of colliding chairs, and dealt with the quirks of unreliable sanitary devices… because even the Universe has a dirty sense of humour!

The best friends of MagAO-X team:

superb seeing…

… and lots of food!

My favourite moment? Watching the team gather in the dome after a successful night, faces lit with joy and wonder, as Clay gently closed its eye to rest.

Thank you, MagAO-X team, for the vitality and good vibes, and for making me feel 17 years old again 😉 .  You have my deepest admiration for your amazing work.

яoger


“Apu” by MagNolia Blues Rock
This is a band from La Serena (my cousin plays the keyboard in it), and this is one of their latest songs.

The word apu in the Quechua language means “lord” or “chief.” For the Inca people, apus were protective spirits who watched over humans, livestock, and crops in the surrounding area. The Incas believed that every mountain had its own apu, with a unique name and geographical domain, directly influencing the life cycles of the region they presided over.

This song by MagNolia celebrates Cerro Grande, the mountain around which La Serena has grown for over 500 years, as well as the ancient people that lived before the Spaniard arrival. Enjoy it!

MagAO-X 2024B Day 14: More Treats than Just Empanadas

This Sunday, we celebrate the triumphant return of the penguin seeker, Dr. Joseph Long, along with his bonus blog detailing his short weekend journey. On top of the cute penguin pictures, Joseph brought back lots of local chilean snacks that he sourced in supermarkets during his trip.

As always, before the sunset viewing session, a few of us went out for a vizzy spotting session. We only spotted a little baby vizzy and we were unable to find the parents. I suspect that we have been coming to this spotting location too often and have scared some of them away. As requested by a follower of Jay, we recreated the famous “crawling Jay, searching for vizzy” moment.

A baby vizzy 🙂
A Jay
Bringing dad energy to vizzy spotting (picture by E. McEwen)

Roger, our T.O. for this turno, marched towards the dome with another basket full of empanadas in the glow of the setting sun as we gathered outside the control room for another sunset viewing. Although not captured by a phone, we were fortunate enough to witness another green flash on a Sunday this run. “Do you get deja vu” feeling that I am getting?

Shot of Roger doing his curl workout by E. McEwen.

Tonight on the observation schedule, we have Sebastiaan and Alycia. Some errors popped on CACAO, but were “successfully ignored” and we went to observe giant stars with low resolution mode on VIS-X and regular imaging mode on MagAO-X.

As the time for midnight lunch approaches, Joseph cracked opened some of the snack that have arrived on the mountain today. Katie, our resident Canadian snack tester, had particularly strong feelings about the ketchup flavored cheetos. As a big fan of the Canadian ketchup chips myself, I would have to agree with Katie on this one. Unfortunately, I have another disappointing news to deliver: the empanadas today contained 300% more olives than previous Sunday.

Katie expressing her feelings with her facial features.
Chop up this disappointing olive empanda, Johnson!

With the successful engineering blocks in the past few days, Sebastiaan implemented partial EFC on sky for Alycia and Jay’s debris disk observations, which dug a dark hole for seeing fainter objects like disks.

“Three Magellans” by Alycia

Song of the Day

Per the 24B blog rules, the song I have chosen for the day is “déjà vu.” We are constantly doing new. and exciting science on the mountain, so I “think everything is special”.

MagAO-X 2024B Bonus Blog: Once more with penguins

It’s been a long-time dream of mine to see wild penguins. I have previously been thwarted by scheduling conflicts, pandemics, and the simple preference for being home after a month away rather than prolonging my travel further… but enough is enough. Once Maggie and Katie managed it, I had to get my act together and actually plan an outing. Due to scheduling constraints, this required me to steal away in the dead of night.

It’s much easier to plan such an excursion from the Las Campanas Observatory El Pino office than from the observatory itself, so I went to bed early, got up during the day, and rode down the mountain. El Pino lacks the food options of the lodge, but has an actual address you can give to people to come pick you up. The new rooms aren’t half bad, and they have a great view of La Serena… or they would, if someone had put a window in the southwest wall of Room #5.

It is generally understood that the main reason for us northern-hemisphere types to travel south of the equator is to see penguins in the wild. (The explorers of old also noticed the constellations look kinda funky down here, but they’re probably just upside down or something.) These graceful and intelligent animals are found all the way up to the equator, but no further. Different species of penguins have evolved to adapt to different climates, making them available in a variety of fun flavors. Most penguins are flightless, but this blog records one exception.

The Antarctic Emperor penguin is, sadly for us, not visiting the 29th parallel. However, the Humboldt penguin is perfectly happy noodling around at the same approximate latitude (29°15′31″ S) as our beloved Magellan Telescopes (29°00′54″S). Their longitude, of course, differs. (This results in the penguins computing a different local sidereal time for their telescopes.)

Maggie covered the logistical particulars of this excursion well enough, so I won’t reiterate them here. The gist of it is:

  1. Take car from La Serena to boat.
  2. Take boat to penguin preserve.
  3. Take photographs.
  4. Provoke jealousy (optional).

So, without further ado, pingüinos:

I lack a telephoto lens so there was a bit of optical alignment required between my phone camera and binoculars for most of these photos. Note that the penguins are very small because they are far away and also because they’re very small.

There were also some other goofy dudes.

And on the way back, a family of dolphins came to play by the boat!

After returning to shore we also stopped at a spot exhibiting tour group—Andean fox symbiosis. They trotted right up when we pulled over, expecting treats.

Note that we did not feed this fox. Mind you, someone‘s been feeding them.

One benefit of spending two nights down in La Serena was that I could restock our observing snack supply. The Magellan Clay break room has been kept well stocked with biscuits and The People’s Cheese, but one eventually craves variety.

Visiting grocery stores is one of my favorite things to do any time I’m in a foreign country. I believe you can learn a lot about a place by what people snack on. However, some things provoked more questions than answers.

Why is Sahne-Nuss the only candy in anti-theft packaging? What are Costco brand nuts (labeled in English) doing here? What kind of flavor is “cola de mono”?

Ponder these questions as you enjoy the…

Song of the Day

I hereby declare bonus blogs exempt from the per-run blog rules, being as they exist outside the blog-time continuum. Also, I don’t think I can incorporate any lyrics from this song in the post.

BUMP OF CHICKEN「天体観測」

(天体観測 (tentai kansoku) does translate as “astronomical observation”, though.)