Under certain conditions, such as high winds or observing faint stars, it is advantageous to use the shortest exposure times (~20 msec) of the VisAO camera and perform Lucky imaging. This technique is based on first selecting only the best images in a sequence of short exposures, and then shifting-and-adding (SAA) the results. This process can be computationaly intensive. As such, we have implemented a pipeline for the VisAO camera which is based on Google’s Youtube service. First a sequence of frames is uploaded to YouTube. If SAA can be beneficial, YouTube will offer to fix it, stating that the video is “shaky”. Here we present a comparative analysis of this pipeline.
Before:
After:
As you can see, significant improvement is achieved!
Future work:
The next phase of implementing this data reduction pipeline will include direct framegrabber-to-Google uploading, preventing any need for local storage. This will be helpful in limiting the need for MagAO project personnel to cause so many problems at LCO.
Tonight we closed the loop on-sky, on Kate and T.J.’s first night here this run.
We were able to use the new pupils we calibrated over the last few days, and Marco’s new interaction matrix, to close the AO loop with 378 modes. This was a big step forward! The wavefront error was close to 100 nm rms in 0.5-0.7″ seeing. This is our best correction yet!
Closed loop image of V~5 star at 980nm wavelength with coronagraph on VisAO.Clio display and Vanessa with a beautiful diffraction-limited image.AO WFS and ASM display.Focusing Clio in various filters as well as the APP.
You might have noticed that our server redirected you to https. This will help ensure that MagAO continues to be a source of good, clean, family-friendly fun. Thanks to Paul Hart for helping Jared get a certificate set up.
KT saw the Zorro by the dining hall mid-morning. He was not shy at all, and let her get pretty close to get a good picture. Our telescope, the Clay, is in the upper right of the photo, it’s the left-most telescope of the big pair.If you are worried about Vizzy when a fox is out and about, note the size of Zorrito as compared to the cars here — he’s very very small.
Thanks to our loyal readers, Jared has found a new source of funding for Arizona’s various AO endeavors:
A comparison of MagAO and Zero (Clio/LBTI/CAAO) domain names. Curiously, though MagAO is ranked lower than Zero, it’s worth more.
Alfio and Marco have been hard at work building bigger and better interaction matricies. By enabling or disabling rings of ASM actuators around the central obscuration, they are able to create more robust, higher quality calibrations. They create different sets of shapes (different “modal bases”) to apply to the mirror, based on which actuators are enabled. The new interaction matricies they’ve taken today have improved the VisAO image quality by ~20%! They also took a full suite of calibrations which will allow us to observe very faint targets.
Alfio and Marco building away. Laird and Jared weigh in.
Today we also moved the Clio solid nitrogen pump down to the basement, to reduce telescope vibrations. The optical alignment of the CRO is so sensitive that we can easily see a 1 micrometer (10^-6 meter) displacement. So we need to take as many sources of vibration off the telescope as we can; pumps are especially bad. The telescope staff routed a ~150ft hose from Clio to the pump’s new home in the basement.
Vanessa and Laird work on removing the Clio pump from the rack. Katie and Victor attach the new vacuum hose.We explored the basement after installing the Clio pump in its new home. Upper left: Various cables have to be routed up to the telescope chamber. Lower left: Pato shows off the telescope bearings. The whole telescope floats on a cushion of oil (the blue ring behind Pato). He’s pointing out the bearings and encoders that control the telescope’s motion. Right: To keep the telescope temperature equilibrated, huge fans circulate the air.
We’re T -1 day from going on sky. The whole gang is hard at work finishing preparations to the AO system, VisAO, and Clio.
The Clio gang. Katie writes pipelines for Clio calibration and data reduction. Jared works on VisAO performance analysis tools. Alfio and Marco build a library of AO calibrations. Laird oversees it all.
Tomorrow, two more team members will be arriving: TJ Rodigas and Kate Follette. Just in time for the big debut!
Now it’s time for me to follow Povilas’ lead…
Povilas lazes around.
Quotes:
“You drive me to caveats” — Povilas
“Now the entire blog is staged” — Katie (after Povilas admitted that he said that just to get on the blog. He loves us.)
“Nature throws thing at you that are not Kolmogorov. That’s a major caveat.” — Laird
“Maybe we should go back to the old interaction matrices. If the Strehl is too high, it might melt VisAO’s CCD” — Jared
“Cheese helps me to concentrate” — Marco
“Well… is the Clio pump on?” — Laird (asking completely sincerely!), blaming Clio for vibrations even after we stuck its pump down in the bowels of the telescope
“I have control over everything” — Alfio
“If you can’t focus a camera then you shouldn’t really be going on-sky with it” — Laird
Well the Wildcats lost to the Buckeyes this evening, but take heart, Arizona, things are looking up for us MagAO’ers down here.
MagAO says “Bear Down”
The main highlight of today is that the AO system is running closed loop on 0.8″ simulated seeing at 1 KHz sample speeds (where we were at the end of Comm 1). We have 300-325 modes running with a brand new (better) basis set of Fernando that will hopefully work on sky (which would be an improvement over the 200-250 modes achieved on-sky in comm 1). We’re going to keep the CRO on tomorrow night to take the time to get our interaction matrices and camera focus positions right… but everything seems to working well.
The loop closed with beautiful Pyramid pupils on the right and a beautiful red-optical PSF on the left.
There was also a VIP guest tour of AO operations today, and the guests were “more excited than undergrads” (as Vanessa put it) when we demonstrated closing the loop.
Jared wows the crowd with a closed-loop demonstration, and some exciting imagesKT impresses the crowd with her planet image.
Vanessa and I have been working on all sorts of housekeeping and optimizing Clio tasks…
Vanessa and I standing by Clio after it was mounted the other day
Of course the zoo is still hopping here:
A guanaco gazes at Las Campanas Peak, visualizing the future GMT on the now-flattened mountainMarco caught this awesome shot of Vizzy curling his tail, squeaking, and watching the sunset. We call this a “wild vizcacha” since he’s not at the Astronomer Support Building as is his wont, but is hopping about the landscape.
“You should show them the chaos that is MagAO” –Dave
“Sitting through an earthquake here feels like observing at the MMT” –Laird
“It’s the Wild West — It’s Cowboy astronomy” –Katie & Vanessa
