We’re off! The Tucson MagAO-X crew (notably sans PI) set out for our 2024B run at pretty much the crack of dawn on Sunday. Delta Airlines must have heard through the grapevine about Jay and Jared’s intercontinental sprint from last time and opted to intervene—when we booked these flights, the only option from TUS-ATL was taking off bright and early at 7:10 AM. We all found each other at our departure gate (we congre-gate-d? that one’s for you, Josh), redistributed the snack load, and boarded the plane without a hitch.
all smiles before boarding (the first time)
Given that I don’t normally wake up at 5 AM, I was asleep pretty much the second I found my seat. I woke up about an hour later convinced that we must at least be somewhere over Texas, but when I pulled up the window screen I was dismayed to discover we hadn’t moved an inch; perhaps the lack of jet-engine noise and air turbulence was the reason I’d slept so well. From what I gathered from the captain’s announcement (in which I heard an airline pilot say the phrase “this is really embarrassing” for the first time), there had been a minor computer malfunction. Maintenance had been called in to deactivate the broken computer so the backup could be used, but instead they disabled both the broken and the working computer. Oops. This resulted in our sitting on the tarmac for about 2 1/2 hours, de-planing, and then re-boarding before leaving sometime around 10:30 AM. If any of us had wished for a later flight, our wish was certainly granted.
Despite the maintenance difficulties, we arrived at ATL with ample time to grab a smoothie, stretch our legs, and get some homework done. I guess a 6-hour layover really does make you delay-proof.
big stretchone of these laptops is not like the others
We boarded our second flight with no issue. However, as a fun little treat and test of our patience, the captain again came over the PA system to let us know that maintenance needed to fix something up before we could take off. Thankfully, this time it only resulted in about 10 minutes of delay, and a (not) short nine hours later we arrived in Santiago!
if you don’t have a store bought neck pillow, homemade is fineclassic
We learned a few lessons in the Santiago airport, the chief being that the line to re-check bags with LATAM is fast if you have Delta Status, but if you don’t have status you can skip the long “regular people” line by being declared a “problem” by the airport staff. Not naming names.
An obligatory Starbucks run and a short flight later, we made it to La Serena, traded some Doctor Pepper Zero (a USA special) for some Nespresso at El Pino, and headed up to see our favorite telescopes. At LCO we met up with Sebastiaan and Elena, ate a group dinner, and—of course—watched the sun set.
can’t quite reach north enough meeting MagAO-X for the first time IRLin the evenings, we face east to drink tea
but first, let me take a selfie
Welcome back, everyone.
In honor of our journey, the song of the day is Traveling On by the Decemberists:
Hey there, here is Elena from Leiden. I am new to MagAO-X but jumped right in to write this first blog post of the run. But what do I know? This is my first observation run, first time in Chile, first time many things. I don’t even work in Arizona, what is this mess?! Well, as an outsider, I want to document my experience of fitting into the team with a quick tutorial on how to speed up the process, as a reference for newcomers of the future. You will thank me later. There are only two important points to remember. Careful, the second is utterly complex!
Write your first blog post. You are not really part of the team until you write your first blog post. Don’t be shy – you know, that chaotic energy you hold inside after 30+ hours of travel? Let it out and write your masterpiece.
Stick the MagAO-X sticker on your laptop.
Do you think point 2 is easy? Then you haven’t done it extreme.
Me applying the MagAO-X sticker on my laptop
Wear shoe protection. That’s not enough, you need to use that… thingie… yes, that thing against electrostatic shocks, you don’t want to get hurt! Close the strap around your foot and the thread goes inside your sock. Good. If you have voluminous hair, tie them before you wear the hair net. You don’t want hairs stuck under the sticker. Also wear a coat, face mask, and gloves. No fingerprints allowed!!! Here you go. Now you can carefully apply the sticker on your laptop and… Welcome to the MagAO-X team.
And now, let me briefly explain the magical journey Sebastiaan and I went through to travel from the old continent, and specifically the land of tulips and sea level, to sunny, caliente, mountainous Chile. The journey actually started off great, if we don’t count the fact that I forgot the charger for my camera at home, and Sebastiaan, having forgotten of the existence of the Sun after 5 months in the Netherlands, didn’t pack his sunglasses.
This is not even nearly as dramatic as finding your way through Madrid’s airport. Fortunately, Sebastiaan already holds a PhD or we would still be stuck there. Here you have practical pictures displaying the madness of this airport:
We landed (green arrow). We proceeded to (blue path) walk, then get two different buses, walk again, take a small shuttle metro, walk again, to finally get to our new gate (red arrow). Before you ask it, yes, it is the same airport, not two different ones.
It was faster to fly from Amsterdam to Madrid.
Exit is down apparently…
From Madrid to Santiago? Both our heroes slept through the entire flight so we have no recollection of this part of history.
After stopping at Pollo Stop for a nice chicken wrap – that they had to make twice, as they had put cheese in the Sebastiaan’s “sin queso” wrap – we got on our last flight. This was so short it didn’t even feel like flying. I must say tho, I would have preferred another 10 hours of travel by plane rather than the last 2 hours of drive. Fellow car-sick people will understand me. Those were the 2 worst hours of the journey out of a total of 32.
Song of the day? Heard it on the radio in the car driving up the mountains as I was trying to keep Pollo Stop safe where it was supposed to remain: Inside my body. It’s I will survive but in Spanish. A nice tune to celebrate getting to LCO safe and sound.
Celia Cruz – Yo Vivire’
People have told me I have now the power to decide rules for the next blog posts. Since it is late, I am tired, I love singing, and I depleted all my imagination to write this blog post, I will stick to: Every blog post needs to contain at least two sentences that are lyrics from songs. Put them between “” and write at the end the songs where they come from. I said two but the more you manage to use, the more pleased we will all be.
Since I am generous, I will give you an alternative. Instead of two lyrics, you can use one quote from a South American writer or poet that links to the events of the day. Sorry, I know this is difficult, but this is my only chance to show off my literary culture. Here my sist Isabel is explaining perfectly how tired you can get when traveling to LCO with an excellent simile.
“I was so drained I felt as if I were staring through a telescope at the light of a star dead for a million years.”
See what I did there? Heh, heh, heh. I hereby present to you a recap of the 2024 NYRIA workshop at UC San Diego–Josh style.
Day 0: Arrival
I arrived in San Diego with multiple hours to kill before my hotel check-in time. After acquiring recommendations from family members, I made my way over to the “Gaslight Quarter” (as it turns out, this is actually the Gaslamp District). I then walked into Petco Park–home of the San Diego Padres baseball team.
Despite its name, Petco Park contained no pets.
I was a bit surprised that the stadium gates were left open to the public, but I suppose the Padres team is used to letting people walk all over them.
After reaching the hotel, my roommate Gustavo and I ran to a nearby Starbucks for some last minute presentation edits/homework assignment submissions.
This late night work session was sponsored by Starbucks.
Day 1: Intros + Tours + Beach Day
On my walk to the workshop, I briefly considered dropping everything to join Saturnia, Emperor of Moths, in their rock band but I thought better of it.
A band of moths.
Maybe next time.
In the opening session, we were treated to a great presentation from Professor Quinn Konopacky on the history of UCSD. Quinn also provided us with a brief update on the status of the Gemini Planet Imager.
Unfortunately, the GPI wavefront sensor is in Indiana at the moment.
We then introduced ourselves via some stylish slides.
Jonas wins for best use of photoshop while Weerapot wins for best use of the International Space Station as a green screen.
Jonas rides an ELT-themed bicycle.
Weerapot joins us from the ISS.
We next went on lab tours, seeing many a detector and dilution fridge.
Detecting a detector with my detector (say this 3 times fast).
This fridge cools things down to millikelvin temperatures.
An old planetarium. Perhaps we can get one for the office?
Following the lab tours, it was time to kayak. Along the way, Olivier’s RTC software made an appearance.
Putting the AO in San Diego.
I have no pictures from kayaking but perhaps that is for the best. Aditya and I managed to crash into every kayak on the high seas at least once. However, we did see some seals, sea lions, and orange fish (garibaldi) so the excursion was very much worth it.
We concluded the day with pizza and smores on the beach (photos courtesy of Weerapot). Unfortunately, no green flash was spotted this time around.
Beaches are best enjoyed with pizzas, smores, and sunsets.
Day 2: Time to Get Down to Business
Day 2 began with a series of talks on instrumentation.
Christian giving a talk on EPRV.
During the lunchbreak, Professor Adam Burgasser led a DEI workshop on adopting a growth mindset. One of the prompts was ‘Your instrument was awarded $30 million…’
Here at MagAO-X, we are always employing a growth mindset.
The afternoon session featured more exciting talks. My roommate, Dr. Gustavo Ramos, fresh off of a PhD thesis defense, gave a great talk on his star recognition algorithm.
I recognize at least one star in this image.
Some additional highlights from the talk session:
I promoted Laird’s postdoc position……and preached the good word of iEFC.Jayke told us about post-processing of Keck NIRC2 coronagraph images.Dr. Briley Lewis told us about direct imaging of solar system objects.
Upon returning to my hotel, I was greeted by an ominous warning on the microwave.
This signage could have prevented many fire alarms in undergraduate dorms.
Day 3: Talks + Tacos
The morning session was filled with additional instrumentation presentations. Here are a few more highlights:
Chanisa developed a spectrograph for atmospheric + astronomical applications in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Peyton is characterizing detectors for the Keck SCALES instrument.
Mariam works on an RV spectrograph located in the Canary Islands.
Haffert et al. (2019) count: 2
A fan favorite amongst professors whose names start with “Laird” and end with “Close.”
We were treated to a great career panel during our lunch break, featuring Professor Steph Sallum (she’s a Steward alum!) from UC Irvine, Professor Shelley Wright from UCSD, and Dr. Marie Ygouf from NASA JPL.
We then gathered outside for a group photo followed by tacos.
The sun was in my eyes, so I could not see anything.
Clarissa takes a selfie for the late arrivals table.
The gang’s all here.
Day 4: Field Trip
Thursday featured a field trip to the Palomar Observatory, sponsored by Oreos and Jersey Mike’s.
I’m growing tired of typing, so here are the sparknotes:
The Palomar telescope dome (this telescope is an old soul).The Palomar AO system.The telescope itself was too large to fit into my camera FOV.The PARVI instrument housed within a very professional Styrofoam enclosure.Photographic plate images from Palomar (photo courtesy of Weerapot).Ben telling us about his solar tracker for PARVI.An ABSOLUTE UNIT of a pine cone.
Day 5: More Talks, More Tacos + Closing + Green Things
Day 5 is dedicated to the color green. Thus, I present some green things:
1.) Philz Coffee
The mint leaves from my Philz Iced Mint Mojito.
2.) Our hackathon final project presentations (the prompt was to build a green telescope).
Edoardo presents the S.A.L.A.D. telescope. What is greener than salad? Nothing.Tania presents Ice-T.Our fantastic logo (courtesy of Dr. Mark Cunningham).
3.) Dr. Saavi Perera’s closing remarks (not green, but we’ll let it slide)
4.) The green scarecrow hats from Tacos El Gordo
A final acknowledgement goes to Danny for his great stand-up comedy throughout the workshop (not pictured because I was too busy laughing of course).
The 2024 NYRIA workshop was a great success. Perhaps we can hold a future workshop in Tucson?
We’re on our way home, leaving behind a fixed, upgraded, and working MagAO-X. Ready to go for 2024B.
A Goodbye
While we were there they had just finished stripping parts from the famous “NAS” from the venerable MagAO. They loaded it up to take it down the hill to the bodega, where it will be taken apart and scrapped.
Thanks for all the memories.
The NAS was never uselessSome mechanico humor
A See You Later
Been seeing this flashback inducing metro-blue forecast for a couple days:
And it was rolling in as we loaded up the van:
But MagAO-X is safe in the cleanroom, waiting its next shot at the telescope.
See you later
Mysteries For Next Time
The current drama (for us, anyway) is that they have (again) done away with the agua con gas. It does produce a lot of plastic waste, but it was maybe the most discussed amenity by members of the MagAO-X traveling circus.
It appears that the solution is these “soda guns”. But none of use were brave enough to try them out. So next time then.
What will happen next?
The other mystery involves the goat herd that was roaming, and shitting, all over the mountain. First, a reminder that goats are cute
yes, that’s someone’s room.
So either the goats have a dog, or this dog has goats.
Walking up the dog gave me a good barking, and then herded the goats away from me.
Now we have questions about this dog’s life.
The dog was always with the goatsAnd if you got too close would come over to let you know that the goats are off limitsNot unfriendly, tail wagging and a good-natured ears-up lookuntil you made the wrong move
So here’s the question: how does the dog stay alive? We hear that maybe there is a camp nearby. But how does it work? Does the dog herd the goats there once a day? Or does the dog have to wait until the goats decide to go back? Is there a signal?
Walk, not Run
It was a gorgeous day in Santiago. Jay and I took our time and just walked from place to place. It’s the little things.
The succulent wall was as stunning as ever — it always looks extra special when the sun is out.
Lab Rules
For the last god damn time, bring a god damn flashlight when you go to an observatory. We work in the dark. It’s what we do. Your cell phone does not count. When everyone has to share the PI’s flashlight . . .
And a new one. And it’s kind of a big deal, because in over a decade we’ve never had a rule about the blog rules other than whoever posts the first post of a run gets to set them. But from now on, your rules must not set a limit on the number of days in the run. In hind sight it’s just a classic Murphy’s Law blunder. (TBC, I liked these rules, it was fun to look up songs by decades — I was surprised by where a few landed. I just didn’t think about the ramifications until the day we started rescheduling flights and I remembered the ? in the rules . . .)
So here’s a song from the 2020’s. Hoping our last flight to Tuscon goes through because if it doesn’t I don’t know what we’ll do — other than blame the blog rules.
[A peek behind the sausage factory curtain of blog ops: There was a brief moment on Friday night when I could have written this post but decided to go to sleep instead. 36 hours later, I am frenetically making up on lost time from the courtyard of a hostel in the Bellavista neighborhood of Santiago. The hostel has Wifi but doesn’t allow me to connect to Slack, so I can’t post photos of most things I’m writing about. Sorry.]
After our final dinner on the mountain, were joined by the resident electrical engineer to consult about finding a resistor for the cam LLOWFS shutter that we installed earlier this week. “I know it’s Friday evening”, Jared said, “but is it possible to do this tonight?” “Every day is the same here,” Pato replied. “Except for Sundays, when there are empanadas.”
Ninety minutes later we had a working shutter and a satisfied PI. “That’s a nice small victory at the end of the trip.” There were several frustrations, setbacks and difficulties with this engineering run. Good progress was made however across the board, and I think that all of us left the mountain feeling satisfied about the time spent through the process.
Last sunset of LCO was a beautiful one
The main reason why I went to LCO this October was to overhaul the PIAA (phase induced amplitude apodization) system so that it could be used without needing alignment on-sky. The system consists of four lenses which need to be immaculately aligned with respect to each other. Relative translations of as little as 10um between lenses cause dramatic PSF degradation, meaning that previous runs required opening up the system after coupling to the telescope, and gingerly turning hand-knobs while squinting at a lagging video feed of starlight. No combination of the Thorlabs or Newport catalogues carried actuated lens assemblies that could provide this level of two-axis remote alignment, so we decided to machine picomotor interfaces into the existing cage plates that we’d been using to hold our optics. Getting the rough optomechanics to work with the old design did have some difficulties, and scientists that enjoy playing “find the shim” will see one in an unexpected place. After the system was installed and controllable with a slick new GUI, however, the stressful alignment process that used to take half a day could repeatedly dialed in within 30 minutes. It was, as Maggie said yesterday, a deeply therapeutic experience.
Apodized beam passing through four PIAA lenses following alignment. Bottom right corner: Jared’s beautiful coronagraphAlignment GUI
After finishing my work and taking some lab-data testing the extinction of the laser source, we were ready to start buttoning up the system and getting the lab ready for the observing run in some four weeks time. While Jared and Jay developed the checklist required for the first sans-PI run in MagAO-X history, I spent a thoroughly enjoyable hour cleaning the lab and organizing the piecemeal Allen key sets that had been OCD annoyances over the past week. Although I was not successful in the dream of “every key for every set”, and although our box of misfit keys continues to grow, I hope that the next run will be able to kick off with a fresh, organized start. A big part of the run turned out to be giving MagAO-X the TLC that can be often delayed by urgent actions or on-sky timelines. Maggie did excellent work in re-routing cables to clean up chaotic areas and provide a modicum of organization to an optical bench that can otherwise appear to be bursting at the seams. Although these changes may not be obvious to someone looking at the system afresh, we hope that it will lead to better, more productive and less stressful work going forward.
Reluctantly leaving our home for the past week
[Now, a brief aside for the flora of Las Campanas Observatory]
This was a very special trip for me because I thought that, when leaving the mountain in March 2023, that I wouldn’t return to LCO after graduating. Amid the satisfaction of good progress in the work here, I have equally enjoyed seeing the mountain with new eyes. Since my last time here, I’ve learned quite a lot about native Sonoran desert plants and was very interested to see similarities with the flora of LCO. The plants here cope with even harsher conditions than Tucson, and the mountain in general is very overgrazed by marauding hordes of goats. Most drought-tolerance adaptions used by Sonoran desert plant can also be seen with the plants as Las Campanas.
I’d like to highlight one LCO plant in particular that I recognized immediately from its Tucson counterparts. This is Lycium minutifolium, literally “Tiny-leaved thornbush”, that grows around the hillsides of LCO. There is a beautiful, massive specimen that grows next to the hotel rooms we usually stay at near the lodge. We have several family members of the Lycium family around in the Sonoran desert, including L. fremontii and L. berlanderi. Their fruit is related to a gogi berry (L. chinense) and is considered a “superfood” often used as a dietary supplement. The genus is in the nightshade (tomato/potato) family. They are also beloved by a huge range of birds, who eat their fruits and take shelter in their dense thickets.
Makes sense why it is called “minutifolium“!
The Lycium species in Tucson have several drought-tolerant characteristics including small, fleshy leaves that drop during periods of dry weather. Although the bushes seem to be covered with thorns, these are actually leafless branches that taper to points. One of the main ways to identify species in Tucson is to “shake hands” with the plant: different species have dramatically different pointy ends and leaves. Some species that grow in less stressful conditions can feel soft to the touch.
Fruits of my favorite species, Lyciumandersonii, in Tucson
By comparison, the Lycium at LCO is a thornbush on steroids. Its leaves are an order of magnitude smaller than the Sonoran desert plants, meaning that it loses less water through transpiration. Its pointy branches can basically be considered a middle finger to the world, saying “come and try to eat me”. They are incredibly sharp and strong, even compared to the unfriendly variants that grow in Arizona. Because of this, they remain one of the only bushes that keep their leaves amid the grazing pressure from goats and donkeys. All together, the plant is a very interesting reflection of the different challenges and pressures of the Chilean desert compared to the Sonoran.
Left: L. minutifolium at LCO. Right: L. pallidium at Petrified Forest National Park
Song of the day
If you only listen to one song I ever recommend on the XWCL blog, it should be this one. It comes from my favorite album of the 2010s: “Age of Adz” by Sufjan Stevens. This song is the final track on the album, it is 25 minutes long and it is a masterpiece. Listen to it when you are driving in the car. It goes through the full range of human emotion and some day I will find a party where we can dance all the way through it. I remember listening it to the first time when I was 18, driving under the St. Johns bridge in Portland and not believing that it could change musical passages yet again. I remember listening to it while driving through eastern Maryland in Fall 2019, stuck in traffic and dancing in my seat. And now, I will remember listening to it while walking up to the cleanroom at LCO, 18 minutes deep and thinking that I need to take an extra lap so that it can finish before I get back to work. I hope you might enjoy it as well.
