MagAO-X is here on the mountain, and we have been working to unpack it since its arrival at 10am. As such, anyone looking for coherent prose in what follows is warned to expect disappointment.
We got pics tho.
This is not a pic.
Unpacking is dirty work, but it’s all worth it.
Our hands look like this:
So his hands can look like this:
Today was very “astronomy with hard hats”
But also “astronomy with cleanroom gowns”
There were occasional meetings of the two, even:
“Maggie” unpacked his new grating for VIS-X:
It was shiny:
shiny
The P.I. hugged his electronics rack once again:
MagAO-X let it all hang out:
The success of MagAO-X quite literally rests on students:
There was also a small earthquake, but it’s all good.
Song of the Day
We had 1975, now we got 1977. Ana Tijoux is a Chilean-French MC I used to listen to long before I ever visited Chile.
Trying to rap along with that is challenge mode for maintaining your Spanish-speaking skills. (I used to be able to…)
As a bonus, here’s her 2020 protest song that taught me “guanaco” is slang for the water cannon police use to disperse protests in Chile (because they both spit at you, get it?)
MagAO-X is coming to LCO! We received news late last night that the trucker strike that has left our team on the mountain with no instrument has come to a conclusion. MagAO-X is scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning/early afternoon wherein our team will be eager to greet it and start preparing for out first night on sky (Dec. 2).
In other news, non-bubbled members of the team enjoyed sorting pants and watching the USA vs. Iran match of the World Cup in the lodge.
You can’t have the blues in blue-jeans!Go team USA!
Eden, Jialin and I tried to escape bubble mode early this morning, accidentally making our way to the medical tent for bubble-ending covid tests a day too early. Upon realizing the medical tent wasn’t open and checking the informational email after we made it to the bottom of the hill, we chalked the experience up to a good way to get the blood moving before returning to our rooms to continue on our coursework expeditions. We did however return to the great outdoors for another walk after lunch, this time visiting the Magellan telescopes.
Jialin’s first encounter with a 3m+ sized telescope.
Per tradition the team met up outside of the dorms for sunset, tonight’s being accompanied by some lovely cloud formations.
There are more mountains out there somewhere.True candids are the best candids.
And last but certainly not least, Dr. Laird Close spotted our cleanroom Vizzy this afternoon!
MagAO-X must certainly be on its way now!
To end my first blog post of the trip, I leave you with the song of the day.
First post from Jialin, a new astronomy grad of the MagAO team! As a part of the Gen-Z crew that arrived yesterday, I spent today in my “bubble” keeping myself busy with work and olive counting while waiting for the arrival of MagAO-X. We should be freed tomorrow at 10am after our final COVID test. Shout out here to Joseph for coffee delivery to everyone in the “bubble” and Sebastiaan for his generous donation of the spare coffee machine.
The number of olives served today was surpringly low, merely 10.
To balance the calories consumed and burned, Avalon, Eden, and I went for a scenic walk to the 100-inch after lunch. We spotted the first guanacos since our arrival and managed to capture them with just “5 pixels”.
MagAO tradition of excrement-covered mirror selfies!Spot the guanaco(s)?Putting some pretty flowers seen on the walk so not all photos are selfies.
With full attendance (of those who are physically here at LCO), we went for an expedition attempting to spot the green flash at the robotic telescopes. We witnessed the sunset as well as the opening of the HATPI telescope (video below), which can detect a variety of different objects, from near-earth asteroids and exoplanets around bright stars to novae and bright gamma-ray bursts.
Group viewing of the HATPI telescope after it opened.Warning sign outside the robotic telescope.Robotic telescope cover opening
With the help of Joseph’s tripod, here is the first 8-person team photo of this run! We are all smiling 🙂
YAY TEAM!
Song of the Day
Non-mandatory explanation of my choice of song: first recommendation from Youtube after listening to yesterday’s song of the day!
Eden here, representing the three exhausted first year grads that just landed in Chile. This second wave of helping hands will get to join the great thumb twiddling. (We have also beaten MagAO-X’s shipping crates to the mountain.) There’s no new news regarding the strike, but kindly telescope-time neighbors have agreed to swap nights: time after our run was supposed to end exchanged for our first observing nights. So now our first night of observing is December 2nd instead of tomorrow, a successful stall for more delivery and setup time.
Undaunted by the ever foreboding slack updates, I started my LCO journey at a crisp 7am at LAX. You wouldn’t believe it, but the traffic at 7am on a Saturday is still upsettingly bad.
My last sight of home for a while.Dust motes and the majestic morning wakeup call on our SCL redeye.
In my ATL leg I met up with Avalon for our 8 hour red eye and in LSC customs we caught Jialin! Overall, no huge hiccups. It helps when you have nothing to declare, and no huge astronomy gadgets to explain in a language you can’t speak.
After a successful trip through customs.
From 7am to 1 we hang out in the domestic terminal, scavenging for vegetarian bites and unsuccessfully searching for dental floss.
We each deal with 5hr layovers in our own way. So much hope for MagAO-X in these shining eyes.Finding our telescope on a map of many observatories near La Serena.
After our plane hop north, we get a ride up the coast and into the mountain range to the telescope. Some quick COVID tests later, and we’re settled into our LCO homes for the next week or so!
The roomside views are stunning. Small welcoming committee!And, as is tradition, the crew watching the sunset, now with new members.
Song of the Day
“Pull It Together” by The Greeting Committee
Someone sleeping on blacktop really needs to pull it together.
out of context, Anonymous quotes of the day:
“I’m basically having one long meal from 1pm to 6pm”
“I was lost in the sauce there for a good two hours.”
The truckers are politely “only” causing traffic jams rather than a full blockade, but if you depend on freight vehicles for your business—or telescope operations—you’re still hamstrung by the fact that a ton of the trucks in Chile are busy blocking roadways and not shipping goods.
The government has read them the riot act and started detaining people. Negotiations continued today with some initial promising statements from the truckers. They continued until quite a late hour this Saturday only to remain stuck on the trucker union’s demand for government price controls on fuel. So it sounds like Sunday will remain truckless, and instrumentless.
On the plus side, we do not have thousands of tons of fruit in danger of rotting, or salmon that needs to be shipped immediately. We just sit in our rooms, screwing around doing important science stuff on laptops, and popping over to the lodge for our three square meals a day. It’d be quite relaxing, if it weren’t for the looming threat of losing telescope time worth roughly $50k a night—and the super intense compressed schedule to get on sky ASAP when the instrument gets here.
I don’t believe I used a blog post to announce our official patch design for 2022B, but now’s as good a time as any.
This is Gabriela the gata Andina (Andean mountain cat). The patch vendor did a great job simplifying my artwork, as always, but gave the cat a bit of a suspicious look.
In light of current events, I would like to present my online-exclusive patch design:
Gabriela dice: “¡Ya basta!”
The sunsets here on the mountain are incredible. Arizona can do some great stuff with monsoon clouds, but there’s this difficult-to-capture lilac band across the cloudless sky at sunset here that is beyond compare.
Some people only have eyes for one thing, though.
Also, I met a cool lizard but I didn’t catch their name. Anyone know them?
Aside from that, not much to report. Eden, Avalon, and Jialin arrive tomorrow, so we’ll have some more bloggers. (And, when the instrument shows up, hands. But who can say when that will be?)
Song of the Day
The connection to yesterday’s Delirium by The Dead South is… Saskatchewan!
Yep, more Canadians cosplaying my Southern roots. I like the song, though.
“Sleeping on the Blacktop” by Colter Wall
Now, if you want to hear some non-imaginary Appalachia, check out this short video Warren found explaining how to tell when you’ve got good alky-haul.
