Category: MagAO-C

Hacksaw

Last night we bent a pin on the handling cart, preventing us from rotating the ASM back to the vertical position for shell mounting. So this morning, the first order of business was to cut the pin out of the cart. Extra fun since this had to take place in the cleanroom.

Problem solved, and we’re right back it.

Unpacking Day 6: Right Side Up

The big accomplishment today was flipping the shell so that the magnets are now facing up. This video, filmed by Juan Gallardo, shows the last step in the flipping procedure:

After flipping, the back of the mirror was inspected. Everything looks great.

The shell after flipping.

We also attached the ASM unit to the mount ring, which is how the secondary will be attached to the telescope.

The ASM on the mount ring for the first time.
The ASM unit on the handling cart, being tilted to 90 degrees for testing.

Our heat transfer and fluid mechanics experiments continue:

We added ice to Povilas's fountain today. We have our own chiller for when we're actually on the telescope, so this is just a temporary workaround for the testing we are doing as part of unpacking.

In addition to the main attraction of mirror handling and testing, w-unit and NAS integration work continues. We have tested our X-Y-Z translation stages, installed a new neutral density filter in the VisAO camera, and installed a new gimbal in VisAO. We should actually mount the w-unit in the NAS in the next day or so.

Some interesting quotes from dinner tonight:

“Good news Jared, everybody else is tired, so we can get some work done tonight.” (Laird Close)

“Sometimes you have to hang the stick in front of the jackass.” (Tyson Hare)

The view from outside the Clay telescope, looking west. That's the 100 inch at left. Click for full resolution.
There was quite a sunset on our way down for dinner tonight. Click for full resolution.

Unpacking Day 5: Our Shell Survived!

Another eventful day for MagAO. The big news is that we unpacked and inspected the shell, and it is in one piece. The delicate unpacking procedure took most of the day.

The process started with carefully removing the lid from the inner box.
The mirror still in its shipping frame after being lifted from the inner box.

The moment of truth:

No cracks! Our 1.6 mm thick, 85cm diameter thin shell mirror survived shipping from Florence, Italy to Las Campanas, Chile.

Here’s a longer version of the last few minutes of unpacking, featuring the smooth stylings of Armando Riccardi and the mirror handling team:

Meanwhile, a whole bunch of other stuff was happening. In addition to completing the guider work we also setup the ASM cooling circuit.

Don't worry, the project isn't on fire yet, we're just filling the heat sink. Yes, that is one of our shipping crates.
Victor declares victory. The pump circulates water through the ASM and the big tub.
Povilas and Tyson made us a nice water fountain. This isn't just for the ambiance. Consider that the specific heat of liquid water is 4.2 kJ/kg, the latent heat of fusion (melting ice) is 334 kJ/kg, and the latent heat of vaporization is 2257 kJ/kg. And we're in the Atacama desert.
After dinner we started preparing the flipping bench. Marco Xompero is making some adjusments.
A group photo at breakfast. From lower left: Laird Close, Frederico Piccin, Alan Uomoto, Mario Andrighettoni , Marco Xompero, Victor Gasho, Jared Males, and Armando Riccardi (missing Richard and Tyson, who had already gone up to get ready for unpacking).
In case we take a day off, there's a nice rec room here. Juan's band has taken over the ping pong table for guitar storage though.
Marco gets ready for unpacking.

Guider Demo

Alan and Tyson finished testing our newly installed guider this morning. Here’s a quick demo of the probe moving out of the way, as it would after collimating the telescope.

Alan Uomoto and Tyson Hare surveying their handiwork.

Unpacking Day 4: Clocked Holes

More progress at LCO today. The ASM unit was unpacked and moved into the cleanroom, the mount ring was attached to the ASM handling cart, the finishing touches were placed on our guider, assorted other odds and ends got checked off, and the Arcetri component of our team arrived. Now on with the show:

Mario and Richard removing the shipping cover from the ASM.
Laird is de-burring one of our ASM feet, and Richard is vacuuming another one.
A few modifications were necessary to finalize the ASM handling cart. Miguel, Juan, Tyson, and Victor are adjusting the gear box.
Tyson Hare working on the ASM handling cart. It's his baby.
Mario, Richard, and Povilas preparing to move the ASM
Mario inspecting the ASM reference body. It looks great.
At the end of the day the ASM was moved into the clean room for safe keeping. All work on it will be done here from now on.

This video shows the ASM being moved into the clean room.

This is our new cable bulkhead, being test fitted on the NAS. All of our cooling hoses and electrical and communication cabling will route through this plate.

We hit another snag today. Our “wedge plate”, which is part of the mounting system which holds the ASM on the telescope, was found to have been made with a set of holes clocked by about 60 degrees. This is an easy thing to fix – we’ll drill new holes tomorrow.

Shortly after discovering the clocked holes in the wedge plate, the MagAO team spontaneously formed committees and began problem solving.
Armando Riccardi and Marco Xompero arrived today from Firenze, It. They are here to help us with our thin shell and handling the ASM. They're the world's best, so we're in good hands.
Here is our daily shot of LCO itself. Center frame is the dorm complex, where astronomers and staff sleep, eat, workout, do laundry, etc. In the foreground, the left hand rooftop is the cleanroom where MagAO is hard at work. At right is the Astronomer Support Building, which among other things contains the nearest coffee pot.