Blog

As the first observation night rapidly approaches, it was time to truck MagAO-X up the hill to the observatory. But first, Joseph furiously tried to solve the software woes and the rest of the crew suited up to decable MagAO-X.

With an average of 5 people in the clean tent at a time, decabling went smoothly (no incident with any DM cables whatsoever). Maggie and I removed some old ALPAO cables from within the instrument, which were precariously routed through about 1000 other cables and in between optics. Eden, Logan, and Josh removed all cables from the electronics rack .

Prior to lunch, we got a great look at MagAO-X in its final form before wrapping it up for its journey. On their way to lunch, Eden and Logan got the first glimpse of a Gary on this run.

After lunch, all returned to seal up MagAO-X. As part of the newcomer ritual, I was hazed by being forced into cart construction duty. Luckily, plenty of experienced hands were available to help.

With our package prepared, the LCO crew arrived to ship it up the hill!

With MagAO-X resting in the observatory storage area till the next day, we had some time to enjoy the beautiful views and the exceptional sunset.

After dinner, Eden pulled out some games to confuse us. While convoluted, they certainly resulted in some great moments and memorable blunders.

The best 15 minutes of the day, or more like the most strange 15 minutes, was trying a cup of the notorious Boldo tea. As a wiseman described it, “it kind of tastes like a car.” While I am glad to have experienced it once, I will never do it again.

Song of the day:

As Maggie and I precariously removed unused cables in MagAO-X while hovering over OAPs, this is the song I had playing in my head. I think it also suits all those moments when MagAO-X was being pushed, lifted, and driven to its resting place for the night.

Mission Impossible Theme (Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr’s version performed in 1996)

Guess who’s made it to Chile? Everyone else! You know it’s almost time to put the instrument on the telescope because the brawn has arrived en masse. We were luckier than last run 5/5 of the expected graduates / Postdocs made it to Santiago unharmed and on time.

On our way from the La Serena, we all jammed into the mini van, with just the cubic feet needed to fit all of us and our luggage. It was the hardest jenga our sleep deprived brains could probably have accomplished at that point. Fortunately it was just for the quick jump to the halfway house for astronomers, the Pine on the hill. We had to wait here for a bit before our larger, more official van shepherded us the 2 hours to the telescopes.

Meanwhile, our compatriots up the hill were enjoying a luxurious empenada lunch, after a hard mornings work of calibration tests and computer construction. Some of us travelers were lucky enough to be visited by the masked empenada fairy, delivering the delicacy to our unoccupied rooms.

The travel crew arrived, some well napped, others full of podcast, to a chilly mountain top that feels a little more like home every time. After some necessary rest and recovery in our rooms, we finally joined the mountain team for a big dinner. We’ll be back to big work tomorrow, but for now we get to rest (on real beds, not half naps van or airplane seats). The clouds weren’t looking promising, but they sure did make for a pretty sunset:

The best 15 minutes of the day was getting to see a friendly face from the past! Casey Lam, who was once upon a time a grad student working with Jessica Lu when I was a mere undergrad, just so happened to be the observers before us on Clay. She’s now a postdoc with Carnegie in Pasadena! With the buffer day we need to get the instrument on the telescope, I got to spend a good 15+ minutes catching up before Casey observes her last night and heads back down. Have clear skies and safe travels, Casey!

Song of the Day

To be completely honest, you’re getting a blog post from a pretty tired kid, just maybe the least tired and least busy. See you tomorrow where we’ll be a little more alive!

It’s cold. But, at least it isn’t windy anymore. A good omen has revealed itself this night and it’s that the domes are actually open at sunset.

In terms of flashy #blontent, today was pretty sparse. But this is perhaps ideal for lab calibration days! For instance, yesterday was ripe with #blontent in comparison which meant we were tearing apart cabinets, peeling out of parking lots, searching the trunks of random cars all over the observatory to try and find our ESD kit for the DM cabling. It actually ended up being in one of our shipping crates in the clean room receiving area all along. So, it’s good that Jared has been able to focus on getting good calibrations and figuring out new ways to align our most critical components for the run, which is approaching at the speed of light seemingly.

I got a chance to briefly work on giving old ICC new life using some new computer parts Jared ordered. However we ran into a compatibility issue with the CPU cooler and it won’t fasten to the mobo without special adapters. Apparently this company quietly deemed these to be special order items sometime in last September instead of including them in the box like they have been doing. What the hay…!

Thankfully Eden was able to make an emergency stop at the lab back in Tucson to grab said adapters. Thanks Eden!

This past afternoon we were delighted to officially welcome UASAL’s Kian M. to the 2024Ab run.

The best 15 minutes of today was welcoming Kian to LCO and giving him a brief tour of MagAO-X in lab state, the ASB, and the lodge. Also stating the do’s and don’ts for the experience here. Like, DO max out your empanada order on Sundays. And DON’T desecrate the public cheese. Tomorrow we will probably get a chance to hike up to the telescopes and go swashbuckling or something. Anyone else remember their first time on the mountain?

We’re eager to meet most of the rest of the team tomorrow afternoon, safe travels!!!!

Song of the Day

How windy is it?

When the door to the Babcock lodge is held open by wind blowing through, you know the domes aren’t open. (that’s a day time pic, but you know what I mean)

Luckily Jay and I were snug in the cleanroom almost all day, getting MagAO-X setup for some alignment and calibration work. We started right after breakfast with Juan and Felix and Miguel, and got MagAO-X craned onto its air legs. We then spent the rest of the day connecting stuff.

At the end of the day we had the loop closed and the nice PSFs. Tomorrow we get to work on repeatable alignment procedures and more robust calibrations.

My favorite 15 minutes was after connecting the last cable for the 2K DM, and running the tests to verify that each actuator was functioning, and having it work on the first try – no re-cabling needed. The 1K worked on the first try too, but it always does.

The song of the day is “Act of Approach” by The Dead South.

“You’re back again, so soon…!” Said Hernan as we passed by him walking to the MagAO storage crate to retrieve some steel toe boots for tomorrow. Here’s a quick play-by-play of travel and arrival day for the first wave of the 2024Ab crew:

Well after the ride up we got right to work!

At the end of the last run we ran into an issue with one of the screw jacks in the legs. It became stuck to the point that any more torque applied to the bolt probably would have snapped the Allen wrench, but we managed to get the bottom of the bolt ~1 mm off the ground before it stopped moving completely. We then limped the legs back into the corner of the cleanroom, and here we are now with MagAO-X needing to be re-legged tomorrow morning which can’t be done in case the screw drags on the floor. Thankfully, Juan and his crew came to rescue and with a few squirts of some delicious WD-40 and with some TLC were able to remove the bolt! They even chased the threads with a die and tap to clean them up and applied some grease for good measure.

Unfortunately it wasn’t all W’s in the cleanroom today. We found out that one out of the two fancy new curved monitors meant for the observer station suffered some damage sometime during transit to the cleanroom.

2024Ab blog rules

We’ll stick to keeping it simple this time ’round for the blog rules, so, Song of the Day still applies (all posts must end with a YouTube embed of a song) *and* all posts must include a description of the best 15 minutes of that day/night. The description can include as much or as little detail as needed, and is subjective.

The best 15 minutes of Day 0 was probably meeting up with Juan’s crew in the cleanroom and freeing the stuck screw jack on one corner of MagAO-X’s legs. Having built and daily driven a 1973 VW Bug in my youthen years, I’ve lost many nights of sleep over stuck nuts and bolts. Seeing that bolt finally come free after fighting so hard with it at the end of 2023Aa was honestly a genuine feeling of relief. You had to be there, I guess.

Song of the Day

Folks, it’s cold up here on the mountain. Please bring some of the Tucson warmth with you, we’re gonna need it.

P.S. congrats to Logan, Maggie, and Katie (XWCL) as well as Jaren (UASAL) for going through commencement today!