There’s one upside to an atrocious windowless office in Steward: it makes your Christmas lights look nicer.
The Principal Investigators in place of pride at the top: Katie, Laird, and… Jay. Wait, that doesn’t sound right.
The Xmas Wavefront Control Lab celebrates in style, with only the finest Dollar Tree Christmas decor. They weren’t selling stockings this year, so it’s good that Jhen Lumbres bought a bunch back in 2019.
I would also like to announce the mission patch sticker for 2021 (really putting the miss in mission):
I haven’t named this guy or gal yet. Maybe Robert Bobcat? (Bobby Bobcat to friends.)
As the saying goes: if you’re not queasy, you must not be paying attention!
If you’re lucky enough to have a 2020 mission sticker, you can make them do this:
It’s not much, but it’s something.
Note: Anyone spreading rumors that this will require a 2022 swing-and-a-miss-ion sticker design to complete the ‘ronamoon should be kicked in the knees.
Song of the Day
Today’s S.o.t.D. was chosen by Logan Pearce, nine time winner of the official Star Trek fan club “dankest memes” competition.
If you haven’t learned by now, here in XWCL we like to get festive with decoration. We’ve posted our past Christmas decorations, but it doesn’t end there. We’ve also decorated for Thanksgiving, but it somehow never made it to the blog… until now.
Flashback to November 1st, 2017: Lauren and I decided that the office was in need of seasonal decor update. We put up a small Christmas tree and a door wreath. It was very lovely and festive. It didn’t last long, as we were immediately commanded to remedy the situation.
Back to the drawing board, I guess.
But, in this group, we do not easily give up. The next year, we came back with full Thanksgiving decor using contributions from members of XWCL and CAAO. I present to you, lovers of the blog, our beloved paper hand turkey decorations:
The 2018 paper hand turkey decoration wall, showcased on the bulletin board in front of Jared’s former office at N434. This is the same location we put up the Christmas stockings.
Paper hand turkeys are the epitome of Thanksgiving decor. For any person who attended elementary school in the United States, paper hand turkeys are the most probable fall craft on the agenda. In making our paper hand turkeys, we wanted to embody that same enjoyment from our childhood. I highly encouraged people to sign their name with their non-dominant hand and in crayon.
MagAO-X PI approves of the paper hand turkey crafting agenda.
Unfortunately, we never had the opportunity to redo the paper hand turkey wall. In October 2019, Steward Observatory was undergoing its first renovation and relocated the entire 4th floor north side personnel to temporary office space on the 3rd floor. Additionally, the MagAO-X team was busy in Chile with their first light run. We didn’t get our offices back until December 2019. We had no paper hand turkey wall in 2020 due to the pandemic. In summer 2021, we experienced an office shuffle. We moved to the conference rooms and offices at the other side of the hallway, with no bulletin board easily accessible to post our creations up.
Despite these lost opportunities, the paper hand turkeys continue to live on. Jared likes to keep his paper hand turkey on the bulletin board inside his office, so he can look at it year round in the few moments he sits in there. We currently have a few old and new ones posted up in the XWCL graduate student office space:
Paper hand turkeys in N412. The creativity is boundless! Photo credit: Logan Pearce
Happy Thanksgiving, from XWCL. If there’s anything I’m thankful for, it’s this research group – I’m making it to the finish line of graduate school strongly due to the assistance of everyone in XWCL and CAAO. I hope you, dear reader, get the opportunity to celebrate with who and what you’re thankful for.
Song of the Day
One of my staples growing up was the Charlie Brown holiday specials. My brother and I would watch them on VHS. I think at one point we accidentally had 2 copies of the Charlie Brown Christmas? I probably should watch this again, maybe today (if I don’t fall asleep halfway through from a food coma or writing my dissertation, whichever one comes first).
Vince Guaraldi Trio – Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Theme
XWCL member Logan Pearce, connoisseur of fine brews and science communication, is an organizer of the local Space Drafts (Astronomy on Tap Tucson) event. The special edition Space Drafts talks on the soon-to-be-launched (really) JWST mission drew attendees from around Tucson, including reporters from local news channel KGUN.
Anyone who stayed up late on Tuesday to watch the news saw Logan Pearce’s television debut:
The segment was reused in the morning news, too, judging from this email from beloved departmental program coordinator Michelle Cournoyer:
Good Morning Logan,
While I was getting ready for work this morning, I saw you on the Channel 9 news, very excited about Space Drafts and the JWST upcoming launch. Very cool! I hope you’ll remember the little people,like me, now that you’re a celebrity 🙂
For about a year, Laird, Alex H., and I have been putting together the protoype-High Contrast Adaptive Optics Testbed (P-HCAT). P-HCAT sent half of the simulated GMT pupil to the “Holey Mirror” which, as the name suggests, is a mirror with a hole in it.
Holey Mirror
The holey mirror is able to simulate a piston differential with a piezo-controlled mirror sticking through the hole. This light was sent into MagAO-X and the PyWFS was used to sense piston. The next phase of the project was adding post-doc Sebastiaan Haffert’s Holographic Dispersed Fringe Sensor into MagAO-X. This 1″ optic is able to interfere each segment of the GMT pupil with another then disperse them so we can back out the piston differentials. We got some very interesting results we plan on sharing in some upcoming papers!
P-HCAT aligned, not sending light into MagAO-X through the hole in the wall, but rather to a Basler science camera via a fold mirror
The next step is to convert P-HCAT into simply HCAT. This new and improved version will have a concept known as the “parallel DM.” This involves sending the entire GMT pupil onto a reflective 6-sided pyramid, a hexpyramid, which will send the light to 6 separate deformable mirrors. The central segment will pass through a hole in the center of the pyramid.
Hexpyramid
Manufacturing a hexpyramid with a central hole is no small feat. We are super excited to finally have our hexpyramid in the lab and ready to play with. This week we put it in front of an interferometer to check surface quality. To mount an optic this complex you need to be creative to say the least. See our makeshift mount below. We are happy to note the pyramid is very photogenic – it doesn’t have a bad side!
Hexpyramid mounted in front of interferometer
Piston Control is a fantastic mode of risk reduction for the Giant Magellan Telescope and we are so happy we get to be a part of this effort!
Our Dutch postdoc Sebastiaan Haffert has taught us many important terms (like “We at Toilet Duck recommend Toilet Duck!”), but the one most relevant today is zweetkamertje. As explained by Atlas Obscura, this is the “sweating room” where Ph.D. candidates in Leiden await the results of their doctoral exams.
This draft is being written (in part) during the sweating period of Kyle Van Gorkom’s Ph.D. defense.
But let’s back up a bit: Today, a pandemic-appropriate number of masked people filed in to Meinel 812 (and a much larger people joined online) to see Kyle Van Gorkom defend his Ph.D. research in adaptive optics. The view was excellent, but Jhen and Daewook had eyes only for Kyle.
Some pretty sweet mountains, you might say.
Mr. Van Gorkom (as he was then known) regaled us with tales of deformable mirror characterization and modeling. Battles won, vibrational modes damped, etc. (We will not talk about the IrisAO.)
The room was then closed for the committee to thoroughly examine him. We waited. Some of us blogged. Then, after some ritual hazing questioning, he was presented to us: Dr. Kyle Van Gorkom, Ph.D.!
A toast was called for.
The final test of the candidate is whether they can open a bottle of champagne. We are happy to report that he passed this as well, despite Susana’s evident skepticism.
And, after some initial difficulties, a toast was had! Congratulations, Dr. Kyle Van Gorkom!
