Home at last. After our 24 hr delay in Tucson, and listening to all the horror stories from people who had been trying to get to Santiago for several days, as soon as our plane pushed back the pilot cut the engines and we sat on the runway for an hour to let a thunderstorm blow through.
But all’s well that ends well. We made it safe and sound to LCO just in time for dinner tonight. The first steps of preparations are done: dust covers off, some Clio mounting hardware replaced, some organizing, and we checked on the mirror — it survived. Tomorrow the real fun begins, with moving and then opening Clio to add our new coronagraphs and reorganize filters. We also begin work on our new X-stage motor, which is more powerful than the current one.
Larry got some tea at the Santiago airport Starbucks.Here we are in the van, having just departed el Pino on our way to the mountain. It always feels good when you start this last leg.The last glow of sunset.
And from the better safe than sorry department, this is not a cover by Daughtry, but it is a cover by a band opening for Daughtry.
Well, we at least made it to Dallas. We’ve been talking to other people here also trying to get to Santiago. Apparently flights have been routinely canceled over the last few days due to volcanic ash. I thought we were far enough north that it isn’t a issue, but guess not.
Laird and Jared yesterday, after our flight cancelation. We’re scrambling to try to get good seats. It didn’t work.Laird and Katie in the AA Admiral’s Club in DFW’s Terminal D.
Nowhere fast — that’s how you might describe the MagAO run so far. This post should have been “Day 0” (our traditional day before Laird arrives at LCO), but as you can see we’re moving backwards.
Laird, Katie and Jared tried to leave Tucson today, but, well, they just decided to close the runway 15 minutes before our scheduled departure. We’re not entirely clear what was going on in the tower at TUS today, but it is clear that they started maintenance on the runway before all the planes that needed to use it had left. To be clear, we were in our seats, buckled, doors armed, ready to push, when they closed the runway.
So, anyhoo, we’re still in Tucson. At least we get to spend our travel delay at our own homes, rather than in some random airport hotel in some random city. This happened to Laird, Victor and Jared way back in May 2012, on our first unpacking run.
Quotes of the day:
“Well, we used up our travel contingency. We only have our O-ring contingency left, we better not use that up.” — Katie, commenting on the Gantt chart implications of today’s events. Don’t worry, as long as we don’t forget to grease the O-ring this time, we’ll be fine.
“It means we’re f#@*ed.” — Laird, commenting on the practical implications of today’s events.
The MagAO team is in the final stages of preparations for 2015A — Laird, Katie, and Jared depart for Chile this coming Saturday. We’re going down early to do some work on Clio and replace a motor. By the time we come home, nearly 7 weeks will have passed.
Our preparations have included laying in a winter’s worth of wasabi peas.
We have a highly unreliable supply chain when we are on MagAO ops. So we have to look out for ourselves. This is what 10 lbs of wasabi peas looks like. We’ll see how customs goes.
Over the next 2 months you can look forward to at least one post a day, from your favorite MagAO bloggers, including KT, Jared, Alycia, Kate, Kim, TJ, Jordan, and distinguished guest bloggers such as Hernan, Gabriel, Mauricio, and Alberto. It’s possible that we’ll have an occasional picture of a Viscacha or two. Also, we’ll make fun of Laird. A lot.
Now, speaking of bloggers, we’re adding a few rules regarding the “Post of the Day”. These are designed to add a little creative flair to the musical selections. Here are the new regulations:
MagAO Blog Song Of The Day Rules For 2015A
1) All posts of the day (posts with a Day X in the title) must contain a song of the day. Posts which do not comply are subject to arbitrary, punitive, and likely embarassing editing by anyone else with a password.
2) All songs posted must also be posted with a cover or remake of said song if it exists anywhere on the internet.
a) A version of the song by the same artist, i.e. live or acoustic, does count technically, but does not meet the spirit of this requirement. Abuse of this leniency will be reviewed if necessary.
b) Re-mixes (i.e. by a DJ) also count in a technical sense. Bloggers are expected to use their judgement as to whether substantial interpretive value is added by the re-mix.
c) A derivative work which merely samples or uses the sound-and-feel of the prior work does not count
c.1) An extrapolation of 2.c is that Blurred Lines can not be posted at any time for any reason.
d) Parodies count (except for parodies of Blurred Lines).
d.1) If a Weird Al parody exists, it does not meet this requirement.
d.2) However, if the song has a Wierd Al parody, it *must* be posted, excepting Weird Al parodies of Blurred Lines (see Word Crimes).
d.3) Songs generally felt to be self parodies (cf. Macklemore) must still have a second version posted.
e) Covers by Chris Daughtry do not meet this requirement.
e.1) However, if the song has been covered by Chris Daughtry, said cover *must* be posted.
e.2) Though none is known to exist, a cover of Blurred Lines by Daughtry is still subject to rule 2.c.1 above.
f) Though none is known to exist, should one be produced prior to the end of 2015A any musical production featuring both Weird Al and Chris Daughtry will not be subject to this rule, and can be posted by itself. Even if it is Blurred Lines.
g) The intent of this rule is not to restrict choices to popular songs. If no second version exists, for instance in the case of a musical score from a soundtrack, then this rule does not apply. However, note that the MagAO team will be up all night, every night, for ~40 consecutive nights. That’s a lot of time to search the internet. You had better be sure (see rule 1).
To illustrate the proper way to post a song of the day, I present the following:
Beginning with the actual song (note the Family friendly version is preferred):
I hate that version. When I hear the song, I think it should sound more like this:
You aren’t restricted to one cover of course. Here’s another good one, which is also a hint at how to win the “best poster of cover songs” award.
The following is required for compliance (though it could be used multiple times in the coming months):
Finally, the following two videos help us illustrate the difference between a cover song and a parody video. This is a funny video with a cover song:
This is a parody video, not a parody song, and as such, does not meet the requirements above:
We have just finished designing, and are fabricating, new vector apodizing phase plate (APP) coronagraphs for Clio2. We plan to install these during the last week of April, 2015, prior to the 2015A run. We will be commissioning and characterizing them at the beginning of the run. They will be available for observations on a shared-risk basis during 2015A and 2015B. In addition to the usual authorship procedures for MagAO, during 2015A and 2015B any observations with the APPs will include our collaborators at Leiden Observatory (6 additional authors) who have led the development this new type of APP.
The major improvment over previous generations of APPs is the use of liquid crystal technology, and the exploitation of polarization to allow 360 degree observations. We are procuring two new optics.
vAPP A: the first of the new vAPPs is designed to work at 2 lambda/D, with raw contrasts of 1e-5 or better out to roughly 1 arcsecond. This device will work from Ks to M’. We expect best performance in narrow filters. By splitting the beam with a half waveplate integral to the APP, two opposite dark holes are created. Here we show predicted raw PSF contrast including contamination from the other PSF. The simulated image shows the notional layout of the 2 vAPP PSFs on the Clio2 detector, at two different nod positions. All calculations shown here are by Gilles Otten at Leiden. NOTE: these calculations do not model effects such as non-common-path aberrations, residual wavefront errors, and various pupil features. On-sky performance will be worse than shown here.
Contrast at 90 degrees (middle of dark hole)Contrast at 140 degrees.Contrast at 170 degrees.Simulated vAPP PSF at 3.9 microns.
vAPP B: the second device is primarily a technology demonstrator. It actually has two masks on one substrate. One mask will test a new fully 360 dark hole. The other mask will test using an APP for focal plane wavefront sensing.
