Blog – Page 155 – Extreme Wavefront Control Lab

MagAO Commissioning Day 4: The Adaptive Secondary Mirror is installed!

Today we installed the Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM), a critical and exciting event! This is our 1.6 mm thick 85 cm wide fragile thin shell that was transported to the summit yesterday. It is now hanging up high above the primary mirror in the dome of the Magellan Clay telescope.

We woke up this morning to clouds in the valley to the west — the marine layer.

First, LCO staff removed the f/5 and f/11 mirrors, finishing all that before lunch! In the afternoon, we transported the ASM to the dome from the aux, and the entire installation process took until dinner or later.

We brought the ASM into the Clay dome using the handling cart (“CartRaptor”).

Heave ho — Bringing the ASM into the telescope dome from the Aux building

Once on the dome floor, we attached a harness, removed one bar of the handling cart to fit the ASM through, and attached a crane to raise it up out of the cart.

Raising the bar — Armando demonstrates raising the ASM

Up up and away — The ASM up on the crane

Juan directed the LCO staff doing the heavy lifting.

Director — Juan Gallardo directing the operation

Armando supervised handling of the ASM.

Supervisor — Armando Riccardi supervises handling of the ASM

Derek installed the CRO (Calibration Return Optic — pretty much a retro-reflector) and laser:

Doctor of Astronomy & Optics — Dr. Derek Kopon, first PhD from the MagAO project, installs the CRO and laser.

Then we lifted the ASM to the level of the secondary truss, and rotated the dome around until it was lined up with the tipped-over telescope.

Mirror mirror on the wall — Rotating the dome and crane to line up the ASM with the secondary truss of the telescope, which is pointed at horizon

Finally, we installed the ASM to the secondary truss of the Clay telescope!

Perfect fit — The ASM on its way to the secondary truss of the Clay telescope

traveled the world over to get here — The ASM attached to the secondary truss!

And our quote, now that we’ve gotten the ASM safely from Tucson to Florence to Tucson to Florence to Chile and up to the Clay:

“If I’d known how much shipping we were going to do, I would have picked a different project” — Laird Close

MagAO Commissioning Day 3: The Shell Summits

Today we moved our Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM), including our 1.6 mm thick 85 cm wide fragile thin shell, up to the aux building between the telescopes. Needless to say, it was an exciting time.

Cart Raptor - Cartzilla's smaller more agile cousin. — The ASM is stored on a handling cart specifically designed for this trip

If not him, who? — The entire trip was under the watchful gaze of Armando the ASM guru

Winner of today's best pantalones — Emilio is paying out the come-along, a device used to make sure the ASM is always under control

carefully — Here the ASM is leaving the cleanroom

Gently. — Miguel operating the come-along

Here’s a video of the cart being pushed and pulled onto the truck:

See, this is how a PI would do it . . . — Advisor and student share some shade

The shirt off Pato's back. — Laird and Katie are attaching a cover to prevent the sun from reflecting off our shell and melting something/someone

Easy now. — Here is the ASM all strapped down, and just beginning its journey to the top

Hand in hand all the way. — Laird held the ASM's hand all the way to the top

Back that thang up — The MagAO ASM arriving at Clay

Straight back. — The come-along was used at the top too.

Unload. — The loading dock was specially adjusted to keep our shell safe

Other stuff got done today too.

Alan and Tyson finished installing our new cable management system today.

anaconda thingy — This guides the cable through the hole in the deck as our instrument rotates

Here it is in action, demonstrated by the lovely Tyson:

After dinner Marco and Armando went up to Clay to begin preparing to power up the ASM electronics tomorrow.

Wait, where does this go? — Armando and Marco opening the ASM electronics rack.

Derek Kopon (Arizona/Heidelberg) and Marco Xompero (Arcetri) arrived today. The dining hall is getting full!

quotes of the day:
Frank Perez: “Ok, who’s in charge”
Laird Close: “Well…I guess I am.”

“It can be disconcerting at first, but you’ll get used to it” (Povilas Palunas)

“Sometimes I wonder who’s the student and who’s the director here.” (Laird Close)

For today’s operation we broke out the steel toes. There was some question about style vs. function. In the end, style won.

Rated for a sack of bricks. — A skeptical Alan tests Katie's safety shoes, which are somewhat pinker than the norm around here

About time you noticed me. — I managed to get close enough to this little guy today:

MagAO Commissioning Day 2: That Was Big

Armando Riccardi is here. That means it is all going to be fine. Seriously – stop worrying.

O.k. Maybe worry a little. We had a 6.2 magnitude earthquake today, almost right under us. That’s telescope shaking, rock slide causing, all work stopping strong. Strong enough that Armando abandoned the ASM in the cleanroom. Here’s a map:

Close. Too close. — Coordinates and strength of the quake from Universidad de Chile . It was only 34 miles away.

The valley between us and the epicenter had clouds of dust rising, presumably from rock slides. [check back, I’ll post some pics when I get them]

In the end everything is fine. Nothing broke and we just kept working.

polishing the cannon ball. — Alan and Tyson tweak our guider.

Just connect it already. — Tyson working on wrapping the 'Anaconda', which regular blog readers will remember from our last adventure. Katie and Alan are safety watches in case it turns on Tyson.

Progress was made on site cleanliness as well.

Just a matter of time . . . — Alan gets it done again. Our various mothers will be grateful for once-more poop-free pictures of their children.

And we discovered what “the problem has been dealt with” actually meant. The Viscacha den in the attic of the ASB was screened over.

mizz vizz — The screens put in place to stop the banana raids. The white streaks are evidence of the former occupants. Vizzy looks on with seeming distinterest.

The MagAO project’s first on-sky results!

The MagAO project put together an instrument on a shoestring budget from borrowed parts, to observe one of Nature’s most beautiful spectacles:

The solar eclipse!

We built a pinhole camera using an obsolete cable bulkhead, an authentic piece of MagAO hardware. We call it the MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer. You can see the cable bulkhead below, in this photo of the PI and Instrument Scientist who did all the planning, design, and prep work with the hardware.

Proud designers and creators — Dr. Katie Morzinski, PI and Jared Males, Instrument Scientist

The instrument passed internal Feasibility (FDR)/Conceptual (CoDR), Preliminary (PDR), and Critical Design Reviews (CDR) this afternoon. There was no Pre-Ship Review (PSR) because we hand-carried the instrument from the Aux building to the dining hall. Integration and Testing (I&T) was completed in the afternoon at the Aux building by the PI and Instrument Scientist.

The commissioning and observing run began immediately after everyone finished eating a delicious dinner together in the LCO dining room.

Software and operations were provided by Tyson Hare. He first upgraded the detector from a wall to a sheet of paper, and then commissioned the instrument outside…

Tyson and the MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer — Commissioning the MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer

…then took it inside to the LCO dining room, where the curtains could be drawn to reduce the ambient “dome” light.

Tyson operating the detector — Optimization of the MagAO Solar Eclpse Viewer

Here is Tyson operating the MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer detector:

For Tyson's mom — Tyson Hare operating the detector

Laird Close operated the pinhole camera:

For Laird's family — Dr. Laird Close, camera operator

We simulated the eclipse with a 100-peso coin, to test our optical design and alignment:

100 peso simulation — Simulation of the solar eclipse, on a shoestring budget

A lot of the LCO staff and other LCO observers joined in on the fun!

First light in the LCO Dining Room — LCO enjoying the solar eclipse

Here we show the entire instrument and overlay the light path:

Pinhole cameras invert the image — Light path of the MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer

It was only a grazing or nibbler eclipse at LCO, and here are some of the best images we got:

: Solar eclipse images

Jared at left — Eclipse through welding glasses

It was a lot of fun, and we hope you enjoyed the first on-sky results by the MagAO project!

: The MagAO Solar Eclipse Viewer

MagAO Commissioning Day 1: Left-Handed Vulture Droppings

We had an exciting day on the MagAO project here at Las Campanas Observatory. There were bugs, birds, left-handed translations, a handoff, some solidified N2, and the sun got a little fainter too.

Today was the crew changeover. See Katies’s post about how the next Turno was shown the workings of Clio’s dewar and LN2 refilling procedure.

The big excitement for the day was the solar eclipse. See this post for more on MagAO’s first on-sky results.

We got a little done on the NAS today too. Alan did a bunch of guider testing, and has declared victory. Jared and Katie tested the bayside stage motors, our very powerful X-Y-Z translation motors which move the entire W-Unit to align and focus. These weren’t tested last night since we like to be careful and make sure we don’t destroy the project (as a general rule). We tested their movement in 3 axes to verify that everything works smoothly and that no hoses or cables are pinched. Now, in optics the Z-axis is traditionally along the optical axis, and positive in the direction of motion of photons. Katie noticed that our X and Y axes then follow the “left-hand rule” for their coordinates, and was inspired to pose for a picture. This is Katie’s way of saying, politely, that we do things a little backwards at Arizona.

for those of you who haven't taken vector calculus recently, this is not a gang sign — Katie demonstrates the "left-hand rule" for the coordinate system of the X, Y, Z Bayside stages.

After getting the stages up and running, we could then align the system. This means using the stages to get our artificial star on the optical axis of the W-unit. With a pyramid AO system, we always feel good when we get a nice set of 4 round pupil images.

It works! It still works! — Our pyramid wavefront sensor pupils at left, and the VisAO spot on the left.

A happy AO operator is a good AO operator. — Here Jared is showing some relief that everything turned back on.

There have been a few animal sightings. She’s the only one on the project to date, but Katie has seen a bunch of bugs. It is spring, so maybe they are coming out. We also saw a turkey vulture circling the summit. Nobody got a good pic, but there was unambiguous evidence of its passage.

I hope Alan can find that windex — Our various mothers are going to be disappointed.

Quotes of the Day:
While discussing VisAO’s tiny field of view:
Matt Walker: “it would take a long time to do a sky survey with an 8 arcsecond field of view”
Alan Uomoto: “well, that depends, do you want to do it at 20 milliarcseconds?”
(good comeback Alan)

Tyson Hare: “Look how easy it is to entertain a room full of nerds.” (during the eclipse)

After the eclipse, we were treated to yet one more amazing LCO sunset.