Category: Hardware

2015A Day 21: Insusceptible to Shame

If you read carefully between the lines of yesterday’s blog post (which were mostly complaints about me trying to do science – hmph!), you may have noticed that we didn’t say anything about using Clio. Because we didn’t. At all. All night long.

We didn’t want to panic any of our upcoming observers, but Clio was down for the count yesterday. We started with mild instrument shaming to try and get her back up and running.

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Unfortunately, it appears that Clio is insusceptible to shame.

The good news is that since we’re fessing up on the blog, that means we fixed it eventually! There were a few rabbit holes and false starts, but in the end we were able to bypass a faulty motor controller and get Clio back to work. Here are a few highlights from the process, which involved taking apart most of the motor control box and using tools of various levels of sophistication to test communications between the six Clio motors.

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Once Jared and Katie identified the faulty motor (I mostly held stuff and made coffee, but it was fun for me to learn about hardware… and software… and firmware… and motor instruction manuals), they were able to bypass it and get all the other motors spinning again. The bypass makes operating Clio a bit more of a hassle in that Katie now has to run out to the platform and move the field stop wheel by hand. Luckily, this is one of the less common motor moves for Clio.

At this point, I feel that it is my duty to point out to all future observers that Jared and Katie have gone to heroic efforts to keep MagAO up and running in 2015A. Since I arrived, they’ve foregone sleep and breakfast (which involves fresh squeezed juice, so is a tough thing to give up!) most days to ensure that we maximize time on sky.  And they’re only a third of the way through a loooooong run of loooooong winter nights. So take this as my admonition to be nice and to be grateful when you arrive. Perhaps signs of gratitude are in order. They claim to be all set on wasabi peas and instant coffee, but I’m sure you can think of something.

I’d also like to correct my statement from yesterday. Jared doesn’t hate science. He just hates MY science. Because tonight, when it came down to one of HIS targets, he changed his tune quite a bit about the wind. So here’s another “find the problem” blog challenge. I will happily mail a MagAO sticker to the first blog reader who e-mails to tell us what’s wrong with this picture.

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In other news, it was empanada Sunday today, so that brightened things up considerably.

We ended the night with some astrometric calibrations, which included taking very pedagogically interesting images like these. So here’s another sticker-winning opportunity. Tell us what (a) camera we’re using, (b) observing mode we’re in and (c) star we’re guiding on (the right one or the left one?). If you get 3/3, we’ll send you a sticker!

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I’m headed home tomorrow, which is bittersweet. It’s always a lot of fun to be here, and I got some awesome data, but I’m anxious to get home to this guy.

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So here is the song that he wakes up singing every morning, which has been blissfully out of my head for a few days, and is solidly reimplanted now that I decided to post it to the blog.

Quotes of the Day:

various unrepeatable comments about Clio

“I’m just going to go move the telescope” -Alberto, running out into the dome
“Wait, WHAT?” – Jared
“Is he gonna push it?” -Katie

“USNO is a Joke! …. The catalog, not the organization” -[former naval officer] Jared Males

[4:52:54 AM] Vanessa Bailey: i’m headed home. thanks so much to all of you for working so hard to get the motors working! i hope the magao uptime clock is monotonically increasing from here on out!
[4:53:09 AM] Jared Males: uh no
[4:53:14 AM] Jared Males: we just broke the telescope
[4:53:28 AM] Vanessa Bailey: oh no, really???
[4:53:31 AM] Jared Males: yep
[4:53:48 AM] Vanessa Bailey: i’m sorry
[4:54:07 AM] Jared Males: at least we don’t have to troubleshoot this one
[4:54:11 AM] Jared Males: it’s kinda nice to get to watch
[4:54:19 AM] Vanessa Bailey: i know the feeling
[4:54:30 AM] Vanessa Bailey: guilt and relief at the same time
[4:54:48 AM] Jared Males: Unbelievably, this is possibly Clio’s fault.  It all started when KT went out to hard reset the electronics.
[4:55:01 AM] Vanessa Bailey: bah
[4:55:09 AM] Vanessa Bailey: she just walked too loudly
[4:55:49 AM] Jared Males: this is kt – no i didnt!
[4:55:59 AM] Jared Males: we were transiting at like 89.2 deg and the limit is 89.3
[4:56:18 AM] Vanessa Bailey: that’s pretty damn high
[4:56:58 AM] Vanessa Bailey: https://imgflip.com/i/lnfvg
[4:58:09 AM] Vanessa Bailey: well, i hope it gets resolved quickly
[4:58:16 AM] Vanessa Bailey: good luck!!
[4:58:36 AM] Jared Males: thanks.  we’re back.  Alberto just told us he had to use [redacted content]
[4:58:40 AM] Jared Males: this is getting awesome
[4:58:47 AM] Vanessa Bailey: heck yeah

Getting ready for MagAO 2014B — spare Clio solid nitrogen pump

We’ve had a few meetings lately to prepare for our upcoming 2014B run in Oct–Dec. This will be our second regular science run, and our operations are becoming more smooth and efficient, so we are going to have a more streamlined personnel plan. It will also be our longest run yet (37 nights!).

We are laying in for spares and planning improvements in our operations. One spare Phil has gotten for Clio is a spare pump for pumping on the liquid nitrogen chamber in the dewar to bring the temperature of the detector from 77 K (liquid nitrogen) down to 55 K (solid nitrogen) by lowering the pressure. This spare pump is coming to us from the LBT where it used to be a vacuum pump, and while it is no longer strong enough to deliver a true vacuum, it is strong enough to lower the pressure to solidify the nitrogen in the dewar. It is a Leybold Oerlikon EcoDry M 30 Dry Piston Vacuum Pump.

New Clio pump technical info, from Phil:

The current Clio pump is specified to reach an ultimate vacuum of 5 Torr (7 mbar). This allows the solid N2 vessel to be at 50-51 K. We typically regulate ~5 K above this or 55 K. The new EcoDry pump has an achieved lab pressure of 0.11 Torr. This will put the solid vessel at ~42 K. This suggest we could regulate as low as 47 K on the detector.

Therefore, on this next run, we will explore new setpoints and the effect on detector performance. Thanks Phil!

Here are Laird and Kim (CAAO Project Specialist) working on shipping the spare Clio pump to LCO. It weighs ~130 lbs and is 50 cm long x 30 high x 30 cm wide, and uses 120 V AC. It will be quite at home in the pump room.

MagAO Commissioning Day 9 – Nighttime Edition: Incorporating Clio

Today was a busy day, and we began splitting MagAO’ers into day and night crew.  See Derek’s awesome post for the bulk of the day’s tasks: aligning the CRO and ASM.

The next major happening was mounting Clio to the NAS.  Even though we didn’t play the theme from Top Gun as we did it (sorry Phil!), it was an exciting moment.  This is the first time our infrared camera officially met our optical camera and our AO system!  They are together at the telescope at last!

Clio, VisAO, W-unit, Nas, ASM, Clay: So happy together!

Here’s how it happened:

Removing Clio from the support cart with the crane — under PI Phil's watchful care
Attaching Clio to the NAS ring — under Phil's watchful care
Clio at the Nas, flanked by Phil and Katie
Left: Phil and Clio instrument. Right: Clio electronics rack and Phil.

Phil, Katie, and Laird then aligned Clio’s cold pupil stops to the ASM.

Heave-ho: Shimming Clio to align the cold stops
How's it look, Phil?

LCO crew were busy as always, making everything work smoothly for the run.  Here, Mauricio brings up LN2 to fill Clio’s dewar, and Pato optimizes the PID loop that rotates the Nas while the telescope tracks and slews:

Mauricio brings up LN2 to the Nas platform to fill the Clio dewar
Pato feels for vibrations as he optimizes the PID loop tracking and slewing the Nas rotater

 

Quotes:
Alfio: “What is this mirror cover?”
Laird: “Oh you’re so cute Alfio.”

Phil:  “I don’t lean on Clio.”

Phil:  “Used to be, we only had 1 actuator.”

Povilas: “Can 14 mm be considered a shim? That’s more like a structural member.”

Simone has a key to Galileo's house.

Katie: “Hey Jared, how’s it going with the CRO?”
Jared: “I dunno. It’s all in Italian.”

Jared: “The number of Illuminati asking me questions is daunting.” (That would be Simone Esposito himself, as well as suspected members Laird, Phil, and Armando — see our paper for more info.)

 

Armandino

Jared: “I’m pretty sure I would throw myself off the catwalk if Armando thought it would help.“

Turno

Manny and Richard are on their way home. Clio2 survived shipping, and is ready for MagAO to send it some flat wavefronts.

The electronics rack for Clio2 fits, and doesn't vibrate (too much).

The last thing the guys did was train the LCO staff on how to keep Clio cold.

Manny Montoya briefing the LCO crew on Clio2 operations.
Some hands on training. The blue gloves keep your fingertips attached to your fingers - LN2 is cold!

The next MagAO detachment leaves Tucson today. We’re on our way.

Clio2 Gets The Freeze

After shipping, unpacking, and verifying that everything still works, the last step was for Manny and Richard to cool Clio2 down. Then they took some pictures.

Manny celebrates after taking a good, low-noise, pupil image. He and Richard just successfully cooled Clio2 down to operating temperature and confirmed that the detector works.

Since it works in the IR, basically detecting the heat of planets and brown dwarfs, Clio2 is kept very cold. This is because a blackbody at room-temperature emits most of its energy at a wavelength of about 10 μm, according to Wien’s law. A lot of flux from the tail of the distribution is also emitted at near-IR wavelengths of 1–5 μm. Therefore, for IR astronomy, it is important to keep the telescope and the instrument cold, to avoid this excess thermal flux, which shows up as noise in our images (you’ll hear us call it “sky” or “background”).

To make this work, Clio is contained in a dewar, which is a kind of vacuum flask (a.k.a. Thermos) — an insulated canister that keeps cryogenic material at very cold temperatures. Clio2 has a nested-dewar design with an outer and an inner vessel. The cryogen we use is liquid nitrogen, which has a boiling point of 77 K stp. We also lower the pressure in the inner dewar, using a vacuum pump, in order to solidify the nitrogen (55 K). A blackbody of 77 K emits most of its radiation at ~38 μm, and a blackbody of 55 K emits most of its radiation at ~53 μm. These wavelengths are well beyond what we care about when hunting planets.

In case you ever find yourself in charge at LCO, the cooldown steps and instructions for refilling cryogens are also posted in the Clio user manual.