Home of MagAO and MagAO-X.
The internet went down in the middle of the night last night, and just came back.
Two nights ago we used a high speed camera, an Andor iXON 897 EMCCD, to measure the vibrations of our system at 2500 Hz (that means we were taking images at 5000 Hz). The camera was mounted where Clio normally goes
Then yesterday, Katie rousted the crew to finally install Clio.
It is rare for MagAO to carry out extragalactic observations because suitable natural guide stars are hard to find.
But this time we have got some luck. A week ago (February 8), a bright supernova, SN 2016adj, appeared in the active galaxy NGC 5128 (Centaurus A). Classified as Type IIb, its progenitor is believed to be a very massive star in a binary system, undergoing a significant mass loss before explosion. However, direct identification of the progenitor remains challenging, even though astronomers have been constantly detecting supernovae in imaging surveys.
Since SN 2016adj is only 4″ from a bright foreground star, it is an ideal target for our visible AO camera. Prompted by Prof. Nathan Smith, we used MagAO to observe the supernova on February 13, and successfully took ~2 hr deep exposures at 0.9 micron. Comparing the new MagAO image to archival HST and VLT data, we and our collaborators were able to identify a possible progenitor star. Notably, this is the 5th Type IIb progenitor identified in pre-explosion images over the past 20 years.
Yesterday we posted our results on the Astronomer’s Telegram. You can find the link here:
http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=8693
We started tonight off with some eyepiece observing. Of course, since we had visitors, the ASM decided to act up. It seems to be the same problem we had in 2015A — and I hope it will go away by itself just like it did then. In the brief moments we had a working AO system, we managed to induct 9 new members in L’Ordine .
It’s Valentine’s Day!
Keep it funky.
Today was a 7am breakfast to 7am dawn kind of day. Mario Matteo and his team finished their M2FS run with some calibrations, Juan and the crew pulled M2FS and the f/11, Juan et al. installed our NAS and ASM, we cabled the ASM and NAS, and finally we went on sky, closed the loop, Povilas et al. tested the guider, and we tried out the eyepiece as well as VisAO extragalactic observations. It was a very good, very long day!
Here are Pato and the crew helping Laird and I cable the ASM — it involves laying cables in the tray along the spider — you can see it in the Clio pupil images, this spider is a bit thicker with all the electronics, communications, and cooling lines we have to run to our ASM:
The new VisAO field stop designed by UA/MagAO grad student Ya-Lin Wu has been deployed:
And here we are doing some extragalactic AO at 4am in the control room:
Song of the day:
I feel so much better after getting 8 hours of sleep in a bed! That red-eye is brutal. But now I’ve had a full day of good food after good sleep, Clio is chilling, and things are good. Today…
…I cooled Clio with Victor’s help:
…Jared and Laird worked on the NAS and Laird moved the ASM:
…Truly Nolen killed all the things:
…Jared plugged in the radios because now that we are here he has someone to talk to:
I’m really into this song: