Oh Man! Armando and I waked up having in mind to put the hands into the ASM…. what a mess!!! So GO! light breakfast with only one egg , yogurt, cheese, ham and orange juice (for me) and double ham and cheese sandwich with tea (for armando) in order to be reactive to the ASM trickery.
After a quick meeting (2h!!!), Povilas and Dave and Jared gave us a hope: using a LEGO strategy, we would be avoiding to open the ASM on the telescope. The LEGO strategy essentially was the in-place replacement of the fiber connector. Oh yes… a bit a bet that the connector was the only source of the problem but we verified that in the mean of the replacement procedure so, all good 🙂 !
Povilas clipping the fiber
Our friends needed a bit of training but after a couple of attempts they made a great job and the electronics could communicate again with the ASM!
Armando was showing proudly the source of the issue, now harmless…
Armando shows proudly the connector now harmless
We were so happy that Alfio and I decided to celebrate with the new garlic sauce never tasted by anyone…
never tasted sauce
Alfio and the sauce......the sauce and me...
After to be garlic powered, we tested all the stuff and…
ASM test good! (so far ... 🙂
oh yeah! this evening we can say, it works! … (so far… of course! :))
Alfio’s here! Despite the flu and flight delays, the captain of our software team made it to Las Campanas. Now we just have to get our system ready for him to operate.
We started the day with a plan, and got most of the way through it, but there was a snag (maybe literally). The main attraction is currently the ASM now that it is at home on the Clay telescope. The first order of business was to correct the 3-phase power connection for the ASM electronics rack, as Marco describes in his post. Once that was done, we connected cooling, power, and data cables to the ASM.
Laird and Armando went up on the scissor lift to cable the ASM.Laird by the mounted ASM.The fully cabled ASM. We use pink zip ties for anything we remove at the end of the run - that way we know what to cut when we haven't slept for weeks.
Next was checking the fiber optic network cables between the ASM electronics rack and the ASM itself.
Marco operating the ADSEC supervisor, which is the software that talks to the ASM.
Then we hit a snag – one of our BCUs wouldn’t communicate. There is a bundle of fibers that runs straight from the ASM rack up the mirror, and after much testing we narrowed the problem down to a single fiber. Fibers are delicate, and it’s possible we snagged it yesterday while moving things around in the dome, or a connector might be loose. In any case, without that communications link, the ASM testing is on hold. We have several options for repairing/replacing/bypassing the bad fiber, so we expect to be back at it sometime tomorrow.
While the ASM was getting most of the attention, there was a side show going on in the Aux building. Jared conducted a little surgery on the W-Unit, replacing the famous shutter. The original shutter was getting a little long in the tooth, and was starting to operate a bit slow, so we decided it was time to start fresh.
Replacing the shutter requires removing the vibration-isolated mount and cooling system. The heat sink also has to be reattached, including smearing on fresh thermal paste.
I wasn’t just us – LCO was a happenin’ place today.
Tyson and Jared had quite a breakthrough on the Viscacha front – they saw three at once hanging out at the ASB! Here we thought there were only two – and some doubted that there was more than one.
Vizzies!
And later, a dog came wandering up the mountain from behind Clay.
Opinions vary - it does look well fed. Could this be the Chupacabra that Mark Chun warned us about?While careening down the mountain to take dog pictures, Jared had a run in with another lizard.
Quotes of the day:
Laird: “We want to use the ladder not the scissor lift. With the scissor lift you can hurt the telescope, whereas with the ladder you can only hurt yourself.”
Povilas: “And that’s the way we like it. OK so we also don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Armando: “In Italy, between allowed and forbidden, there are several layers.”
Though we didn’t get as far as we wanted today, we are still basically on schedule, and the beautiful LCO sky gave a nice show after dinner.
The setting sun highlights the Baade telescope, Vizzy, and assorted MagAO team members.Armando and Marco making the trek to the top right before sunset.The setting sun. That's the door to Clay's control room on the right.You might have heard that there was an eclipse the other day, which we observed from here. Since we know exactly where the moon was on Tuesday night at sunset, it's fun to watch it move away from the sun. We're Astronomers, after all . . .
Today we moved all the electronics in their final place with AO workstation.
After that we started testing the electronics simply switching on everything without the ASM connected in order to see if everything works or not and…
One power supply failure after switch on: red light and MasterBCU blinking
AAAAARRRGHHHH: one power supply seems not work. A strange noise like “clic-clic” at few Hertz appeared and in the meanwhile the MasterBCU is loosing power.
At this point we analyze what we knew about the status of the system:
it was kept switched off for months so an hardware piece broken is unlikely
it was perfectly working the last time in the clean room
no one touched/refurbished it
moreover the MasterBCU power supply is blinking as well.
Since we have one single phase from the three phase line supplying one single AC/DC power converter, the failure of the AC/DC power converter can be caused by something missing in the line. The MasterBCU behavior confirms that: his power come directly from the power line without passing from the AC/DC power converters.
So only one thing is really different from the clean room and the telescope…. THIS!
Power lines at the telescope
And here we found the problem: in the three phase wall box the NEUTRAL WAS MISSING so the system cannot work.
Neutral missing on three phase box
The telescope guys fixed it in a couple of hours and now everything works well!
The electronics now works and the MasteBCU is powered on
OK! now next step connect the ASM and we will see….!
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.
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”).
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.
Armando demonstrates raising the ASMRemoving one of the bars of the handling cart so the ASM fits up through itThe ASM up on the crane
Juan directed the LCO staff doing the heavy lifting.
Juan Gallardo directing the operation
Armando supervised handling of the ASM.
Armando Riccardi supervises handling of the ASM
Derek installed the CRO (Calibration Return Optic — pretty much a retro-reflector) and laser:
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.
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!
The ASM on its way to the secondary truss of the Clay telescopeThe 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
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.
The ASM is stored on a handling cart specifically designed for this tripThe entire trip was under the watchful gaze of Armando the ASM guruEmilio is paying out the come-along, a device used to make sure the ASM is always under controlHere the ASM is leaving the cleanroomMiguel operating the come-along
Here’s a video of the cart being pushed and pulled onto the truck:
The ASM on the truckAdvisor and student share some shadeLaird and Katie are attaching a cover to prevent the sun from reflecting off our shell and melting something/someoneHere is the ASM all strapped down, and just beginning its journey to the topLaird held the ASM's hand all the way to the topThe MagAO ASM arriving at ClayThe come-along was used at the top too.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.
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.
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. A skeptical Alan tests Katie's safety shoes, which are somewhat pinker than the norm around here
I managed to get close enough to this little guy today:
