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Finally, after working for two years at Las Campanas, I could collaborate with the AO Team, which went as a rather smoothly work. Also the collaboration from Katie and Jared is amazing. They have been here for 36 days, and it appears just as if they had been a couple of weeks. What I’m trying to convey is the mood on the control room, their sense of humour, and the way they interact towards the VA’s using AO. The always strive to respond all the questions than may arise, and to solve the problems. Regardless that the VA’s have not read the AO manual…..
I look forward to work with them again, I could bring this next time ….

This was our night:

We were closed for the first 7 or so hours of the night. I got some software maintenance done, and at one point I went out into the dome to see what was going on. I found Laird and Katie with their heads inside the instrument.

We finally got to open at about 3 am. In this GIF the red dot is us (Clay) and the blue dot is Baade. We opened at the same time and, it looks like we’re running away from the clouds.

Because of the clouds we had to find very bright stars. When we pointed at Betelgeuse, Alberto (our Telescope Operator) turned to us and said “do you have a finding chart?”. That’s a joke — on faint stars you often have to work out which star of two or three is your target. As you can see, there was only one star in this case.

Amazingly, the sky finally really started to clear at sunrise. After breakfast, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The next result is the only photometric image we took tonight.

Here you can see the result of all the moist (for here) air that blew over us tonight.

I guess I don’t really feel one with the wind and sky, but the past is in the past.

You also might see me cry.

Tonight… MagAO and the Return of the PI:

We are happy to report that Laird arrived safely today. He ran the AO tonight, and gave Jared and I a break — it was nice to not have to worry about the loop! He made it all the way to sunrise. (Jared and I make it well past sunrise these days… or should I say nights). Laird seemed a bit surprised that Jared and I hadn’t broken more things, and of course he was pleased to see that we are still happy and healthy.

Laird also delivered some goods from home: coffee, and my new credit card after my old one was cancelled by my bank for fraudulent activity in Germany (???). Unfortunately, he apparently missed the other package — wasabi peas that Jared and I were really looking forward to enjoying. Jared loves giving Laird a hard time, so he grabbed this screen to prove that the package was delivered to the Close residence before Laird left on Thanksgiving:

However, at least the Close residence is still following the blog… hello!

Tonight started out fine, but unfortunately ended with some pretty thick clouds. Well, in clouds and mediocre seeing, we can still lock on a bright star — Theta1 Ori B — and do astrometry with the Trapezium cluster! Voila:

And now for the pretty pix:

In anticipation of Laird’s arrival, we had eaten the last of Graeme’s wasabi peas yesterday… oh well… here is a beautiful music video to enjoy instead — a treat for the eyes, in Cape Town:

 

It’s been my first time observing at Magellan and I hope it isn’t my last! Everyone here at Las Campanas have been great, especially Katie and Jared, thank you guys for all of your help and company through the night shifts 🙂

This was possibly the closest to America that I’ve been for a Thanksgiving, I’m not sure I got the full experience but I did get to join Katie for her thanksgiving dinner (traditional fish dish of course… – see pic below) and pop in on Jared’s meal with all his family (via Skype).

I have been especially thankful for the great seeing we’ve had tonight, getting down to <0.34″, but less thankful for the peppering of clouds now and then. I ran out to get a pic of MagAO and Clay in action during one of the observations, see below. The passing clouds can be seen as gaps in the star trails (or maybe a hopping Vizcacha).

We tried to push the magnitude limit again tonight aiming at a couple of faint Brown Dwarfs but sadly i=17 is just too much. We had fun trying though!

MagAO’s mascots have been spotted around the dome too 🙂 they can be hard to find though!

Happy thanksgiving everyone!

This is my 3rd thanksgiving in 4 spent with MagAO somewhere other than home [note: that may be hint about understanding of the word “home”]. 3 years ago I had “thanksgiving” in Florence with my Mom and Dad and Laird. 2 years ago we were here at LCO duing our first-light commissioning run.

This is a much more down-to-business MagAO thanksgiving. Graeme Salter is here for a couple of nights using MagAO. His first night was pretty good – medium winds, clear skies, and roughly median seeing. The AO system played nice most of the night and I think we took some good data.

Alycia left today, and has the joy of traveling on Thanksgiving. Hope she makes it home without too much hassle! Laird is traveling today too, on his way back down for the home stretch.

It’s thanksgiving, but we probably won’t be up in time for dinner — plus it’s a big meal right after waking up. So we celebrated thanksgiving this morning after sunrise.

Katie tried to get a good spread going, in the Thanksgiving tradition of variety.

I went with two eggs over easy (dos huevos fritas), which I laid on some ham slices and melted cheese, and topped with a little Tobasco.

The instrument scientist also declared that since it’s thanksgiving, she should have pie for breakfast. Who are we to argue?

Here’s some music to listen to while you sit and ponder your reasons to be thankful.