Today we went on sky and closed the loop! The first half of the night was cleaning up final guider problems, but then just before midnight we acquired our first AO setup star and were able to close the loop with an audience and everything! I’m glad we showed the GMT folk some good images before they had to leave. Jordan arrived safely today.
First we finished up the final touches — removing the ASM cover and mounting the wind monitor: Povilas and Laird took off the protective cover of the ASM. It required the scissor lift and then some climbing.
This is what the Clay control room looks like during commissioning and engineering.
Then Alfio closed the loop and we had some beautiful 6.5-m diffraction-limited images!! First closed loop of 2014A!
A brown dwarf companion imaged in thermal IR filters with Clio2 today
There was also some good wildlife today: Jared took these gorgeous photos of a horse in the afternoon.
Vizzy has a special affinity for Jared, and she (Mizz Vizz) let him get really close to take these pix with his cell.
The song today is historic and fun:
Well, now we’re all on a night schedule — the run has begun!
You may have heard that a magnitude~8 earthquake struck northern Chile after dinnertime. Thanks for all your checking-in emails, and we are happy to say that we did not feel the earthquake at all; it was up in way way northern Chile and we are approximately central:
LCO is about halfway down Chile and the earthquake was way up in the north.
Our thoughts and well-wishes are with the people affected.
Ya-Lin arrived safely this afternoon.
Today we worked all day and all night so I have a lot of pictures to catch you up.
Yesterday Pato balanced the telescope and I got a good view from the catwalk. Povilas was working on alignment.
Pato balances ClayHere’s what the ASM looks like hung up above the telescopeThis is what the crosshairs look like on the ASM cap for fiducial alignment. On the left is a picture of the crosshair taken from standing on the NAS through a telescope Povilas had connected for alignment. On the right is me looking tired.
Today we installed the rest of our instrument: the NAS ring that holds VisAO and the wavefront sensor, and then Clio mounts to that ring. The crew pushes the NAS ring from the Aux to the telescope
Emilio and the crew work on the NAS while Fernando looks onJared and Laird cable up the NASThe crew put Clio on the NASWe are carefully checking to see if Clio is going to fit with the new dust coversT.J., Povilas, and Jared checking out ClioClio attached to the NASThe Clio umbilical after we wrapped it all upClio temperatures are goodClio cloning successful
Then we turned on all our various cooling systems before powering everything on.
Laird showed me the fans for cooling the ASM heat-exchange glycol
The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will be built on a neighboring peak, and so Antonin Bouchez (the AO lead on GMT) and colleague are up here to look in on what it’s like to install and bring online an AO system up here. We are happy to be their pathfinder and to host their visit.
Jared, Antonin, and Laird look on as Alfio and I power up the ASMLaird is plugging in the single-phase and 3-phase power sources for the ASM, while I am hoping he doesn’t fall off the ladderLaird and Alfio check out the ASM guiUp in the Clay control room after powering on the ASM, Alfio and I are checking that everything is ok while Antonin and Laird look on
Tonight we wanted to go on-sky for the first time, but unfortunately we had a major issue with the guider communications and software. TBD, check back in tomorrow.
Did I mention that we worked all day and all night?
We’re pretty tiredT.J. fell asleep at the Clio workstation while waiting for the dome to open.I passed out on the couch in the lounge.
The song of the day is a change-up of genres. It’s a fun one, Lonely Boy by Mnozil Brass. Enjoy!
“Caradhras was called the Cruel, and had an ill name,” said Gimli, “long years ago, when rumour of Sauron had not been heard in these lands.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
We may not have wizards against us, but when it decides to blow here, it really blows.
The winds today on the summit of Cerro Manqui, where the Magellan telescopes sit.
60 mph winds put almost a complete stop to our operations today. We were supposed to move the ASM first thing, and support the f/11 secondary change out. Instead we had to wait until the winds died down enough. Even still, we ended up waiting for a temporary lull and rushing the ASM across the gap (a.k.a. “The Wind Tunnel”) between the Aux and the Clay elevator late this afternoon.
The vans are lined up to try to provide a wind break (I’m not joking). It didn’t really help.
Once the ASM was safely in Clay, the crew proceeded with the changeover. Here’s our delicate shell swinging through the air.
The ASM being craned into positionAlmost there
The crew skipped dinner to get this done for us. Muchas gracias guys.
Katie and Laird cabling the ASM.
A few other things were dealt with in the mean time.
Sometimes you have to call in the master. Alfio made a house call in the clean room to help fix a weird bug in Clio.
After all that bluster, we ended up with a nice calm sunset.
It calmed down a bit at sunset.
The winds have picked back up late tonight. We’ve noticed that there are a lot of airplanes in the skies of LCO. Implications for the GMT laser guide star system aside, this song gives some hope that they might be useful. If it doesn’t stop blowing soon, I’ll be willing to try anything.
First, an announcement: this is blog post #200! How long can we keep this up?
Today’s big accomplishment was driving the ASM up to the summit.
The ASM backs up to the Aux building.This scissor lift is the scariest part of the operation.The ASM is cranked off the truck onto the lift.Victor poses with the ASM as it slides off the lift.
Best question of the day: “Is it still one piece?” — Juan Gallardo, after the ASM rolled off the lift.
We also reorganized the cables and hoses in the W-Unit.
A freshly organized W-Unit.The Daily VizClay and Baade at twilight.
Today’s song is one of many with an astronomical theme. If you listen close lots of pop music is about astronomy in some way.
Today I worked with Mauricio and Laird on evacuating the air out of Clio’s cryostat, which involved cleaning the o-ring and then hoping for a good vacuum. Laird did some fixes to the ASM, removing the alignment laser and making an alignment fiducial instead, and fixing some of the protective covering on the back to keep out the dust. Jared and Alfio worked in the morning on software and electronics for the AO system, and in the afternoon and evening they with Laird tested the cleaned VisAO optics and closed her back up.
Mauricio helped us with vacuuming out Clio’s cryostatJared and Laird cleaning optics yesterday. Today they finished testing their new optics and closed up VisAO.Laird did some surgery on the ASM and I helped a bitI went for a walk/jog and Povilas zoomed by while I took this picture of the valley towards the ocean out there, and the lodge and bird droppings over here.My nephews are really into trucks. There are some really nice ones at LCO.A blue truckA red truckVizzy contemplating the sunset
Song of the day for heavy-hearted basketball fans, if you need a cry š
(family-friendly version):
On a happier note, let’s close with some light-hearted fan mail from my sister: My big sister sent MagAO a fan letter — thanks Anna! She was one of the original 4 MagAO blog subscribers on google reader
