Home of MagAO and MagAO-X.
Caught the 0830 transport down this morning. Irony of ironies, this may have been the most stunningly clear blue Chile-wide sky I’ve ever seen. Caveat: I’m usually coming off a weeks-long night-schedule average 4 or 5 hrs of sleep, so not usually awake for any of this trip.
My short visit was a success. Got our cooling system back to nominal, and installed and tested cables for our new cam-yo-fiz.
I popped down to LCO from Tucson for a quick visit to fix some cooling issues and test some new cables. I left 40 C in Tucson and arrived to 40 F at LCO.
On my flight down I was somewhat surprised to see that Laird was coming with me.
There are blog rules. But since I’m the only one here I’m keeping them to myself. Don’t worry, I’ll follow them.
At risk of not being able to show my face in Eden’s upcoming quals study session, I hereby present to you the Sagan Summer Workshop 2024–a journey through space and time .
But first, here’s a clip of the Journey cover band that blessed my ears on my first night in California.
We began our week with a professional development workshop where we learned about large-scale mission planning. We also learned to appreciate the full breadth of NASA’s acronyms.
It wouldn’t be a direct imaging conference without HCIPy! Sebastiaan masterfully guided the workshop attendees through a tutorial of everyone’s favorite high contrast imaging simulation framework.
Unfortunately, some of us skipped the workshop, thinking that they already knew HCIPy. These individuals in question came to regret their decision while going through the tutorial a few hours later (It was me…I was the ‘some of us’).
Workshop highlights from those who did attend:
Day 2 featured lots of disks. Unfortunately, we were too captivated by the talks to take any photos, so here is a picture of the Philz Iced Mint Mojito (the coffee not the cocktail) that kept me going throughout the week.
Day 3 featured a coronagraphic imaging talk from Professor Haffert. It also marked the triumphant debut of MagAO-X at Sagan 2024.
Around this time, Pasadena attempted to do its best Tucson impression, becoming unbearably hot. Luckily, we have a former chef to teach us how to make Queen’s Coffee.
But wait? Where is our advisor you ask? Let’s take a look:
I would be remiss without showing some exciting, direct imaging results at a high contrast imaging workshop. Our friends in UASAL imaged Eps Ind Ab with James Webb!
Sebastiaan directly imaged PDS 70b and c (at one point) with VLT!
I directly imaged this corporate office building with my Samsung Galaxy S9!
On the final day of the workshop, Jared arrived to give his signature talk on GMagAO-X and it did not disappoint.
Following Jared’s talk, the Arizona contingent gathered for a group photo:
Finally, we wrapped up the workshop by presenting some of our group projects:
And thus concludes a successful workshop!
Gojira made history, becoming the first metal band to perform at an Olympics opening ceremony.
On Friday last week (07/19), Maggie of House XWCL, first of her name, phaser of segmented apertures, protector of 1/4-20 drivers and the first piezoelectric motors, breaker of drywall barriers, the aligned, enthusiast of The Expanse and master of optical waterwheels made Tucson a little brighter that day with the successful defense of her dissertation!
Maggie’s talk took us on a journey through the world of extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) instrumentation and revealed what is coming next for the development of the MagAO-X successor, GMagAO-X, slated to be installed on the upcoming Giant Magellan telescope. If you’re like me, you were mesmerized by the complexities of GMagAO-X’s parallel deformable mirror design and learned a lot about the optomechanical specifics of MagAO-X and the HCAT testbed.
It came to the surprise of no one that Maggie emerged from the closed-door session of the defense victorious and ready to take on the post-student world like an absolute boss. To celebrate, we all convened in the Steward Observatory 3rd floor Interaction Area to sample some celebratory bubbly and treats. Thanks to Jialin, Eden, and Josh for helping me supply some Maggie-approved sweets including coffee cake, jelly empanadas, cookies, and peach melba-flavored macarons (a reference to the sci-fi show ‘The Expanse’).
If you have a spare moment and you’re in the Steward Observatory building gaze upon the new the cork-shaped hole in the ceiling at the 3rd floor Interaction Area [edit: kidding].
Maggie has accepted a job offer to work as an optomechanical engineer as part of the staff at the Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics here at Steward Observatory where she will put her talents towards the latest space-based telescope projects. Though she is moving to a different office space, we’re all super thankful she will stay close to the group both professionally and physically.
We capped the day off with a fun celebration comprised of family and friends. Congrats again, Maggie!
The song of the day is Death Cab for Cutie’s “Transatlanticism” which is also the title to the album which Maggie, Eden, and I saw them play live, in its entirety, last September in D.C. completely serendipitously. This also just happened to be the first show of the nationwide tour…!
It’s a long track with a dramatic build-up, but think I speak for Eden and Maggie as well when I say that this song captures very fond memories that we share together.