Warren and I made it up the mountain without any necessary running. However, due to the leftover storms from Hurricane Helene, the ride was bumpier than usual thus less sleep than usual.
Progressively disheveled.
We didn’t want to be left out of Empanada Sunday, even though we technically didn’t arrive till Monday morning, so we managed to find a tasty new, or at least new to us, spot in the Santiago airport.
Something old, something new. Featured: Starbucks and Trib’s.
Up on the mountain, spooky clouds were a-brewing.
Is that a sky grating?
Okay they were kinda pretty. After dinner we got to work. Jay and Jared worked on telescope proposals while Warren and I staged the instrument for upgrades tomorrow. We moved PIAA hardware out of the system so Warren can install alignment motors on them and I’ll have room to install a reflective Lyot mask for LLOWFS. For unfamiliar readers, PIAA stands for Phase-induced Amplitude Apodization and is a type of coronagraph that utilizes four specially shaped lenses, two on either side of a light’s focus with a diffraction mask placed directly in the focus. This device will allow us to block out light from stars with Earth-like planets orbiting very close-by. Lyot-plane low order wavefront sensing (LLOWFS) will allow us to track lower order modes of turbulence in the atmosphere and enhance the PIAA’s function.
Only bad news of the day: The focal-plane LOWFS (FLOWFS) shutter gluement failed. Luckily, we have three jam packed days here in Chile to work on a bunch of engineering tasks in prep for our November run.
Sad. Jared didn’t like the white glue anyway.
Song of the Day:
We aren’t at a hotel in California, but an observatory motel in Chile is close enough. Hotel California, The Eagles, 1977.
One of the big goals for this visit to LCO was to troubleshoot a coupled pair of actuators on our precious 2040 actuator “tweeter” deformable mirror (DM). Being coupled meant that when we poked actuator 498, actuator 650 moved (not 498). Actuator 650 also moved when we poked 650. We first noticed this problem after shipping MagAO-X in March, when we ran a post-cabling function test. However, digging through our archives we found that it showed up back in November, 2023, but we just didn’t notice.
Now our tweeter is expensive. So we don’t like it when things go wrong, and it makes messing with it really stressful. But having those two actuators acting up means MagAO-X didn’t work perfectly, so we had to do what we can to fix it. We deferred it until after our March and April runs to give us time to plan and do it right.
We can all breathe a sigh of relief: with only minimal shenanigans we got it fixed. After testing various potential cabling problems, we found that a circuit board just needed to be replaced. We had a spare, popped it in, and the couple had split up and gone back to behaving normally.
And we got that done in time for Empanada Sunday:
Empanadas are just a little bit better fresh, compared to at midnight.
After lunch we got onto the next set of tasks, which included disassembling a rack shelf so we can get better airflow.
The shelf in question is actually Jay’s baby. He designed the hold-down system for the components on it. That also means he had to take it apart and put it back together.
We’re also upgrading the Instrument Control Computer (ICC) to go faster and do more stuff. We like to liquid cool our CPUs and GPUs. Normally we rig that up in Tucson, but we couldn’t get all of the components from our usual supplier in time, so we shipped what we had (and found some substitutes on Amazon!) and are doing some clean room plumbing.
An NVIDIA RTX 4090 in the middle of having a water cooling block attached to it. The shiny square in the middle is the business end.
Jay has also been leading the assembly and testing of new ICC. Other than the liquid cooling parts, it was fully working in Tucson before we took it apart to ship it down here. We’re getting it all back together.
Jay hard at work screwing ICC components to the custom rack mount.
Even after our delayed departure, we are making good time thanks to the relatively easy fix to the tweeter. I haven’t had enough running on this trip yet, so I took some time before dinner to go circle around the 100″.
Start of run, heading to the 100″ telescope which is down and left from Magellan.The view back from the 100″. I’m surprised this came out, it was so windy I couldn’t hold my phone still.
Jared and I were scheduled to leave on Thurs. 09/27, however our Tucson flight was delayed to the point where we would have missed our ATL-SCL connection, so we got the opportunity to rebook. Whether or not this was due to Hurricane Helene, we’re not sure. Because ATL-SCL on 09/27 left on time, more or less, despite being closer in time to peak hurricane’ing. Our original TUS-ATL flight arrived about 3 minutes before the plane to Santiago left the runway, so all in all, it was the right move to rebook.
Because we rebooked, the revised departure date was the next day, Friday 09/28. By about 9a on Friday, the flight was already delayed by 20 minutes (we thought: “here we go again”), but thankfully the delayed departure time didn’t change again…. all the way until the VP landed in TUS which (we painfully learned) shuts down the whole airport for half an hour. This new delay was coupled by the plane being overweight as well because of the unseasonably hot tarmac temperatures this late into September. So, the poor souls on standby who got onto the plane had to be escorted right back off to bring the curb weight of the plane down. After all that, we departed TUS *finally* at around 2:10p, a final delay of about 1hr 20mins. We were set to arrive at ATL by 8:15p EST at Terminal B. Our ATL–SCL flight was set to depart right at 8:55p, from Terminal… E….
This is NOT Air Force Two, but it was close to the airport, so, possibly related.Cue the Mario star powerup musicY’all ever see “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey? Maybe the group that practices running photography was onto something, this is pretty fun.
We ended up making it with mere seconds to Gate E14, but Delta misjudged our dedication (and ability to sprint) and automatically rebooked us to fly to Santiago the next day while we were still en route to ATL. After a few tense minutes, however, the gate agents were able to get us back on our original flight and thankfully they didn’t close the door on us as it was definitely after 8:40p by this point. After taking our seat, we left the ground a few minutes after 8:55p.
We landed at SCL without incident but about ten minutes past 7a local time. Normally not such a big deal, but because we had gotten rebooked initially, our new flight out SCL–LSC was at 9a on the dot. The line to get through customs was, of course, super long. We finally got through at 7:55a. Boarding began at 8a, so, more running…!
SCL has also moved the security checkpoint to near the LATAM check-in desks. Again, normally not such a big deal, but Jared was never given a boarding pass when we deplaned out flight from ATL, so he had to get one reprinted before we could get through security. It was 8:34a.
Boarding doors close at 8:45! and the B gates were, no joke, like a third of a mile from the security check point.
We. Just. Made it…!
After taking the transport up from La Serena (and sleeping for most of it), we were just in time for lunch and were greeted by some familiar views.
Truth be told, after all the delays and setbacks and just plain bad luck, I never thought we’d make it this far.
Remember Inglorious Basterds? The apfelstrudel scene is a certified classic.
Bonus Content
For today’s Bonus Content we were greeted by a ravenous goaty parade at sunset…! This made for many, many small “landmines” when walking down later that evening in the dark. Make sure you wipe your shoes extra good before entering your room during goat season.
Blog Rule
Short trip, simple rule. The blog writer must pick the Song of the Day from the assigned decade below:
Day 0: 1950s Day 1: 1960s Day 2: 1970s Day 3: 1980s Day 4: 1990s Day 5: 2000s Day 6: 2010s Day 7(?): 2020s
Song of the Day
The song of the day is Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly with Me”, originally released in 1958.
Welcome to the last blog for the MAPS August 2024 observing run!
The evening started off with Grant and Oli performing an LED strip test that would allow us to more clearly see out of focus images on our pupil lens and visible wavefront sensor. The LED light strip was placed in front of the ASM, along the radius of the shell. Our pupil image was clearly out of focus. Ideally, the circles of light (each individual LED bulb) should not be overlapping. They should look as they would if you were to look directly at the LED strip itself. The VIS WFS image looks better, as you can see more defined pixels of light.
Out of focus pupil image. If you own an LED light strip and ASM, you can replicate this at home!LED strip test on the VIS WFS. WFS pupils should not normally look like this. Spot the difference.
After waiting for a few storms to dissipate, we get straight to doing some AO. Amali closes the loop on 50 modes, then closes on a whopping 100 modes shortly after. The 50 mode loop had a 1.4 lambda/D full width half maximum, and the 100 mode loop had a 1.8 lambda/D FWHM. GO TEAM! Tonight’s honorable target was FK5 0672, theta Herculis.
Loop closed on 100 modes. Ooh… aah…Open loop for comparison. Pupil and PSF quality courtesy of atmospheric turbulence.50-mode loop on and off. Video taken by Amali Vaz.
Bonus Jared quote of the night: “We need more monitors.”
Now we hand things over to Grant and Oli. They battle the on and off cloudy weather as they work on VIS pyramid alignment.
Starlight, no starlight, starlight, no starlight, starlight, no sta-
After they scrambled the topbox (moved the vis CTL and CCID75), the VIS WFS pupils looked VISibly better.
After topbox alignment. The clouds took away some starlight on our pupil image.
With our new, beautiful WFS pupils, Amali, Bianca, and I take turns taking 50 and 100 mode response matrices. The image below is a 50-mode self RM, which confirms we are sensing the same modes that are being poked.
According to Jared, diagonal = good.
Unfortunately, AO had to come to a halt with about an hour left of observing time. While taking some RM’s, we noticed a giant red blob on our actuator position and current map. Red blobs are not good, as they indicate contamination in the ASM. What could this contaminant be? We are not sure yet, but it could be anything from a detached magnet to a bug seeking warmth.
That brings us to the end of the August 2024 MAPS run! I haven’t even hit the one year mark of working with the MAPS team, but I can still say that I am proud of how far we’ve come since my first run.
Goodnight MMT, goodnight air, goodnight stars, goodnight ladybugs and abnormally large daddy long leg spiders that are everywhere.
:･ﾟ✧:･.☽˚｡･ﾟ✧:･.:
As we all make our way home, I would like us to keep the song of the night in mind: “On the Road Again”, but specifically Donkey’s version from Shrek.
The duality of nature is something I’ll never stop wondering at: my first post came to you on a night so action-packed, I felt incapable of writing every detail down. Last night, however, we didn’t leave lightning shutdown.
To bide the time in hopes of some sky-time, Amali guided me through the MAPS CACAO simulation; from starting up the server, deformable mirror and wavefront sensor, to closing the loop with 20 modes, 50 modes, and finally 100 modes. Hopefully this means we’ll be able to reach 100 modes on-sky!
MAPS CAAO Simulation: 20 Modes!
Next, Lauren was shown the ways of simulated CACAO. It was comforting to know we wouldn’t break the ASM since this was only a simulation, and it was alright to push the mock-ASM to its limits and discover what not to do to the real deal. Apparently, completion of the simulation means I am now prepared to operate the AO system on-sky solo. But, I still feel like a tenuous sapling whose very existence/job/ASM is threatened by anything stronger than a mild breeze.
Amali’s pedagogy then dictated Lauren and I teach Parker how to operate the MAPS simulation. Thusly, we discovered the gaps in our learning and may have unintentionally confused Parker in the process but, he did succeed in reproducing a 20-mode loop. Maybe we didn’t do so bad after all? Our next step towards becoming strong AOaks is to write the simulation steps in our own words. Gee, it’s a good thing lab classes were a requirement for graduation; who would have thought writing reports was so important? (I jest, I jest)
The word of the night is Arizona. Talking to Yoav, I was reminded that not only does Steward Observatory and the University of Arizona contribute significantly to astronomy and humankind’s exploration of space; but so does every University in Arizona. We are strengthened by our inter-university collaboration, now more than ever. In this sense, I dare to say Arizona means ad astra per intellectum et cooperante–to the stars through understanding and collaboration.
Now, I would love to explain the majesty of the storm that kept us from opening, but words would not do it justice. So I’ll let the photography of our talented telescope operator, Brian Pinault, speak for me. Ever the diligent guardian of our invaluable tools, Brian captured this moment of volatile yet sublime nature while visually surveying the storm’s trajectory.
Credit: Brian Pinault
Credit: Brian Pinault
In honor of the storm, the song of the night is The Tempest, Op 18 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
I’d like to add a bonus to tonight’s post. If you don’t already listen to Ologies, the science podcast by Alie Ward, then you are missing out. Let me present to you one of you new favorite listening experiences with the episode on Fulminology, the Study of Lightning. Check it out, or your chances of being struck by lightning may increase! (again I jest, I jest)
Maybe devil fruits don’t exist in our universe, but lightning does…
