The night started off with clouds and the group had a nice and easy time getting to start their systems. Nothing like having time to catch up and get lunch together.
CLOUDS, CLOUDS, CLOUDSCLOUDS,CLOUDSLunchCACAO StationTopBox Station
At midnight the weather decided to clear and we had high hopes of starting where we left off last night. It is always good to have high hopes. The ASM decided to change the way it had been functioning for the last night and time was taken to troubleshoot and verify the issue.
Acronyms
What will you hear when you are in the MMTAO control room:
ASM
CACAO
MILK
CHAI
DoCrime
Pisces
TBX
In a sentence:
The TBX cameras sent images to CACAO that is using MILK to send commands to CHAI which caused the ASM to DoCrime which allowed Pisces to see clearly.
MAPS is The MMT Adaptive optics exoPlanet characterization System, an upgraded adaptive secondary AO system for MMT. For the next week or so, it is installed on the telescope and the team has important engineering and science to do. To this effort, the XWCL has contributed one CACAO expert on the ground (Eden McEwen) and two remotely (Jared Males & Olivier Guyon). We tried to contribute two on the ground, but the departure of Avalon from Tucson means there was a vacancy in the dorms.
I’ve always wanted to see the MMT, ever since the daily high in Tucson cracked 95ºF (if not longer!). I expressed this wish to Manny, and someone vouched for me as “useful”, and thus did I secure Avalon’s spot for myself.
Now, on the MagAO-X team, our fearless leader likes to surprise and alarm us by turning up in unexpected places—to the point where we have a calendar tracking his movements so we know what timezone he’s operating under. Most recently, we learned he was in Tokyo thanks to Hello Kitty.
こんばんは
I thought it was time to return the favor, by heading up Mount Hopkins without a peep to Jared. We had it all worked out: Eden was going to write blog posts with me lurking in the background of her pictures, and we were going to wait and see if Jared noticed… but the cat’s out of the bag already.
And Eden’s asleep.
So I’m writing the blog post.
MMT, formerly the Multiple Mirror Telescope (currently the Mmt Mmt Telescope), is a 6.5-meter telescope in Southern Arizona at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory. It’s part of Steward Observatory, and University of Arizona. Also the Smithsonian.Also Harvard. Everyone wants a piece of the F.L.W.O., and who can blame them? It’s gorgeous country out here.
UofSAO? Photo: Eden McEwenThat’s the MMT! Photo: Eden McEwen
The night shift left Tucson around 1 P.M. with all the food for their 1–6 days of meals in tow (depending on length of stay). With a mere hour-and-a-half drive separating their lab in Tucson from their telescope, the MAPS team has MagAO-X thoroughly beat for convenience.
The delicate optical bits were all in place well before sunset, thanks to efforts of the day team, allowing me to take this glamour shot when we opened up the dome.
Look at that little guy!
The telescope operator had kindly tipped the whole contraption over to make a compelling group photo:
Who would win: Fifteen people, or one wiggly mirror?
The night began with breezy but clear conditions and seeing hovering just under 1″. Naturally, the first bit of the night was spent debugging, aligning, and turning things off-and-on-again. (We know all aboutthat.)
Once starlight was hitting the wavefront sensor (thanks to Oli) and the pupils were looking good and round (thanks to Robin and Jacob of UToronto): it was time for some CACAO: Compute And Control for Adaptive Optics. The same ultra-fast, ultra-flexible AO system that powers SCExAO and MagAO-X is being implemented as the new brains controlling the adaptive secondary.
Andrew and Eden worked diligently through many fiddly bits of computer plumbing to get pixels from the sensor and commands to the adaptive secondary (under the watchful eye of Jess):
Eden hard at work, with a cameo by Vizzctor V. Viscacha.
Meanwhile, in Tokyo, MAPS East was supporting the effort over Zoom:
They put those eight monitors up so they don’t have to see a bare ugly wall.
Their combined efforts got us to our final checklist item of the night: close the loop. With an hour or so to go until sunrise, the globally distributed team worked on improving the calibration and setting things up so tomorrow night we can skip right to “the interesting part.”
Stay tuned.
Song of the Day
In honor of the MAPS East team’s contributions, I submit this Japanese groove that’s been stuck in my head.
It’s been a busy month in the eXtreme Wavefront Control Lab. The main event was the return of MagAO-X after a long wait for a ride on the mountain without us. Everyone’s favorite ExAO instrument finally showed up right at the beginning of May, which of course meant that we broke out the hard hats and steel toes.
Everyone is always happy to be here.This is the box with the AO Operations Computer (AOC).
The day of the main event started at 0600 when we started working with the mirror lab crew to crane our shipping boxes open. But first we needed the stuff that makes astronomy go:
Jay brought coffee and bagelsThe box must first be unboltedWe got the lid off and before the first rays of sunshine peaked over the loading dock wall.Then we moved on to the electronics rack.Not everybody was awake enough for power tool operation.
MagAO-X has been down below since October, so of course the lab had to be reorganized. You could barely tell that MagAO-X used to live there full time!
This is the HEPA blower we use to apply positive pressure to keep the dust out-ish.One must first tear one’s lab apart before one can put it back together. Our clean room has to be partially disassembled to fit a crane into the lab to finish unloading MagAO-X.A “clean” room doesn’t stay very clean when it just sits on the floor for 6 months.
Maybe the biggest excitement of the whole thing was evidence that we had water leak in to the box. It must have been rained on (we always blame Miami), and we saw water spots on the mylar blanket and some rust on the shipping frame. So we were super anxious until we finally got to unwrap the instrument in the clean clean room:
Regarding the circle, I wouldn’t worry about that little circle.
Once back in the lab, safe and sound, we began the long process of unpacking.
All the things are shrouded in plastic bags to keep them dust free. We call this step “de-baggie-ing”It’s a lot of bagsBag free. But does it work?
For me, the shipment isn’t over until we actually cable the 2040 actuator deformable mirror (I’ll let you work out how many wires it takes to move 2040 actuators . . .) and show that it has survived the trip.
Eden is tightening down a bolt to press the connectors together. It’s a good workout and low stress.
Thanks to the excellent touch of Eden and Sebastiaan we got all the connections made on the first try and sat down and closed the loop.
This is when I start sleeping again.
We were gone long enough that the university’s IT department didn’t recognize us:
Our computers are . . . complicated. When they draw up rules for campus computing systems they just don’t think about 2 kHz real-time control of turbulence and TB/day data rates.
Here is MagAO-X, Phase I, all set up and cabled back in its Tucson home.
But now the fun begins! We’re taking the next year off from the telescope to do some major upgrades, and long overdue repairs. Today we started tearing our MagAO-X apart. The first thing to go is the Pyramid Wavefront Sensor detector, which is on its way back to France for a timing board replacement and to get some (possibly) more sensitive operating modes installed.
Our venerable OCAM-2K EMCCD. This is a key part of what makes MagAO-X go and go fast. But it needs some TLC. Before shipping it, we of course have to drain the glycol from it.
When we head back to LCO for April (or so) 2024 we’ll have 1000 more actuators, new coronagraphs, new LOWFSs, and waaaaaay more software. Maybe fewer github issues too.
Going back into hardware mode is both exciting and a little terrifying. The XWCL will have to stay focused on the tasks at hand and be ready to deal with all the sh$t that won’t work the first time and go about figuring it out. But remember: “having more things just means more things can go right”.
It’s also a time of change in our group. Alex (v2), Joseph, and Avalon have all defended; and Warren is gearing up for his defense in a few weeks. If you’ve been following this blog you know they have all been crucial to the success of MagAO-x and been on many an adventure. The rest of us are now scrambling to scoop up all of their knowledge and make sure we can keep it going without them. We’re also going to miss them!
Here’s a bunch of the XWCL at the usual Friday afternoon spot, celebrating Avalon’s defense, and maybe showing some relief that MagAO-X made it home too.
The song of the day is “Guess Who’s Back” by BEGINNERS & Night Panda. It is, as the kids say, a banger.
Stay tuned for an action packed summer full of travel and conferences, new hardware, probably some more glycol spills, and all of our usual shenanigans.
Today another shining star of the MagAO-X team has defended! We all are so happy to announce that Avalon McLeod, after powering through a triumph of a thesis and defense, now has her Masters degree in Optical science!
Ready? Set. GO!
The story of Low Order Wavefront Sensing (LOWFS) was everything a AO control theorist could ask for. We got motivation from the 2020 Decadal Survey, multiple novel acronyms, AO diagrams old and new, PSF cleanup simulations, and stunning comparisons between lab and on sky results. Even those of us who saw the on-sky prowess of the LOWFS loop our own eyes were on the edge of our seats as she revealed how quantitatively well it performed our last run.
The Classic AO LoopSNR, STDV, and Response Matrix plot trifecta
After the public portion of the talk, everyone but the defendee and the committee were asked politely to “Get out!” We all waited patiently for the committee to decide what we’ve felt for a while, that Avalon has earned the title of a Masters Degree.
(Well, we actually didn’t wait so patiently that we could help ourselves from sneaking a peak to see if they were done yet…)
The Optical Science’s building has glass in unexpected places, which mayhaps should be expected of an optics building
Among Avalon’s many skills is ceremonial un-corking (along with LOWFS-ing, nano-fabrication, hoodie fabrication, cameo printing, and a ccapella do-whops) and we celebrated!
Cheers to Avalon!Now that’s a grad!
Congratulations Avalon from your MagAO-X family, observing runs and lab time won’t be the same without you. We wish you the best of luck as you go on to be an Astronomer for Draper in Boston! They’re lucky to have you.
Yesterday our very own Joseph Long ascended the hallowed steps of academia and become a PhD holder! The PhD defense at Steward begins with a 30 min public talk summarizing your thesis (summarize 5-6 years of work in 30 mins????), followed by a snake fight with just the committee, who then kick you out to decide your fate. Reception to follow in the venerated “Interaction Area” at Steward, the area in which we interact.
I am actually in California right now doing an internship at NASA Ames for the next 6 months. But Joseph is pretty much my best grad school friend and I have a lot of airline miles, so I hopped a quick flight for the festivities.
There’s the Catalinas in the window
The Public Talk
It was standing room only (not just because the only room he could reserve was too small…) as the audience sat in rapt attention for Giant Planets, Sirius, and Starlight Subtraction At Scale.
Not a Joseph joint without the fizziesThe homiesThe plot every exoplanet talk is required by law to show.Time to get SiriusJoseph’s aesthetic and vital GUI interface for MagAO-XDiffraction gif but make it cats.A certain member of Joseph’s committee is well known for his love of orange Fanta at the telescope.
The Celebration
Of course he passed! While the OpSci grads get lovely sashes, a certain Steward postdoc-turned-faculty Kevin Hainline pioneered a slightly sillier tradition for Steward grads: an elaborate crown and cape featuring highlights of their research. If you follow this blog, you are well aware of the craftiness of some of our group members. So the troops were mobilized into action in true XWCL spirit (with heavy consultation with Kevin).
The cape is an astronomy fabric with gold letters (Avalon-printed) and plots from his papers with logos he made as well. The crown has a circus flair, and features bells on the ends, with a dumpster (I mean a MagAO-X with one too few doors on the top, oops) as the center feature. Around the base of the crown are hand-drawn (Eden-drawn) animals from the mission patches Joseph designed, each with their own crowns. Jialin also made some incredible art of Joseph, to be featured below.
The encrowning and encapening
The ‘fitcork poppin’CheersJared’s first astronomy PhD student. He’s had all OpSci grad before this.Three generations! Laird was Jared’s advisor.Ewan Douglas was also a committee member. The other two joined remotely.Joseph’s ‘rents! Two Drs Long + Dr. Capt. Mrs. Marta L. Gwinn-Long (Ret.) M.D. M.P.H.
I didn’t really get any pictures of the food! Jay Keuny’s partner Mel made incredible focaccia bread, Jay made amazing pistachio macarons, Maggie brought a lovely pie, and Jialin brought fun Asian flavor chips!
Behind the scenes
The crown beginsEden’s amazing crowned animalsThe cape begins
Avalon’s amazing craft skills on the letters
Jialin’s Joseph-inspired art projectsI made the MagAO-X and laptop from afar in San Jose
Bonus crafts
Jialin made some incredible Joseph art:
Noodle Chef JosephJester Joseph. Check out the pineapple and space cats lurking in the cards.
As a congrats gift, I made as Business Viscacha, or Businesscacha, or Biscacha. Behold Bizzy Biscacha:
He’s got some serious viscacha business to get to.
The briefcase opens and there are little letters in there 😀
Bizzy in his new home, attendin’ to business.
The Future
This summer Joseph is moving to New York City to begin a postdoc software fellowship at the Flatiron Institute. He’ll still be active with MagAO-X so keep an eye on this blog to follow his adventures.
