Remote observing feels weird. Not because of what goes on in the ROC, but rather because of what goes on outside the ROC. When we observe at LCO, Tucson starts to feel a little bit like a dream. When you’re on top of Cerro Manqui, the idea of grocery shopping or vacuuming or pulling up the weeds in the yard is so distant it’s almost ludicrous. There is only telescope. But, during these remote ops nights, those things aren’t far away. Dishes need to be done, cats need to be fed, the car runs out of gas, and your professors expect you to show up for class. The world doesn’t pause for observations in the way it sometimes feels like it does when we go down to Chile.

However, this means the good things in life also don’t get put on hold! These include, but are not limited to: the ability to replenish the snack pile mid-observing run, joyful toddler noises, and getting to sleep in your own bed at the end of a long night.

And, if you’re lucky like me, you get to show off your work to your parents! It would be a little bit of a journey for them to come down to Chile, but they made the trek down to Tucson this week. Among other things, they got to witness MagAO-X doing some real science in really good seeing conditions.

While we don’t have a dedicated kitchen staff making us empanadas in Tucson, being able to get a Sonoran dog and a churro right before observations is pretty sweet. So I’ll stand by what I said: remote observing feels weird–but it certainly comes with perks.

The color of the day is açai-blueberry blue.

Song of the Day

Welcome to Day 22! Tonight was another observing night for Alycia, while we were here in Tucson operating remotely. However, since she was great at both operating the system and logging, it wasn’t too eventful for the three of us on second shift.

With this being the first run observing remotely, I’m sure it would be worth documenting our experience. More similar to LCO than you’d think!

Night Lunch

5 pm Workout

Carlos

Observing Snacks

Unfortunately there was just one photo in blogops so this will have to do..

Color of the Day

#FFAC1C Color of that one snack that smiles back

Song of the day

I Still Do by The Cranberries

There is an eerie silence in the Clay control room. It’s a bit like a spooky Twilight Zone episode where everyone has disappeared, but their disembodied voices periodically ring out.

Despite the remoteness of 2026A, it made sense for me to be here, as I will be spending the rest of the week at LCO meeting with colleagues to work on a new Magellan instrument called MagNIFIES. When it comes to Magellan in about 4 years, it will be the best infrared spectrograph in the world. How awesome to use one amazing instrument and plan another in the same week.

I arrived yesterday, hung out a bit with the MagAO-X remoters and visited Baade by moonlight to see the engineering in action (their control room was almost as crowded as when the MagAO-X team is here).

Speaking of the Moon, my flight was landing in Santiago just as the Moon was rising. The couple in the seats in front of me asked the flight attendant why it was such a strange color. The flight attendant turned out to be a keen observer of the sky from the plane, and clearly understood that the Moon could only be seen like that at certain times of month and that the orange was normal (but she didn’t mention Rayleigh scattering). In contrast, a few minutes later, the people behind me, apparently less keen observers of the sky, asked her, “What is that thing?” and had trouble believing it was the Moon.

A different color is definitely on my mind today, as it is May 1, i.e. “College Decision Day,” and that means that my youngest offspring decided whither he will fly from our nest. I helped my mom find yarn in “CWRU Blue” so she could make him an appropriate hat. Yes, there is a web app for finding yarn to match a given hex code.

However, unless it is allowed to be totally self-referential, that is not really a color associated with this blog post, so …

Color of the Day: Rising Moon Orange

Song of the Day: The Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel

Ever since the MagAO-X team left the mountain, we have not had a sunset view nor the company of Maggie-OX in the control room. Well folks, that changes today. Our long time collaborator and primo disk observer, Alycia, has made her journey up the mountain tops today. She shared some familiar views of the sunset and wild life up at ~8000 feet.

Thanks to Alycia, we also got a sneak peak at the new setup in the LCO control room and the snacks she brought for her observing nights. Meanwhile in the ROC, the voice of MagAO-X has returned with a small tweak. The first shifters (Tiffany, Jay, and Katie) and Jared agreed upon the name of Magnus (or would Magnux be better???). We are still figuring out our feelings towards Magnus…

“Hey Magnus, can you come see me after this shift?”

The team worked hard to image some GEOs and moons around asteroids in the newly set up mood light. The moons Aegis and Gorgoneion might have been spotted around its host, the main-belt asteroid (93) Minerva. Who knows? Maybe after some post processing, some undiscovered moons will become visible.

The first half night seeing was decent with some dramatic spikes, likely from the higher winds. As the observer of the second half, I was hoping the seeing stays where it is with slightly less winds. The sky did let me have my way for a few hours, so I got to challenge the AO operators with some faint targets.

Unfortunately, the wispy clouds began to roll in a few minutes before the transit of my second target, a V=13.3 star. Our dedicated AO operator of the night, Eden, fought to keep the loop closed. Even with a low loop speed and modes applied, the loop opened once every 1-2 minutes. More attempts were made in hopes that the clouds would clear, but alas, the observer called it a night an hour before sunset.

Color of the Day:

Song of the Day:

The observing night started with myself (and Josh to supervise me…) aligning the instrument rather early before observations began. Since I am less familiar with the startup and aligning process, this was a good time to get some practice in.

Once aligned, we began the night with our collaborator from MIT joining us, Jensen Lawrence. For these observations, the AO operators had to remain actively involved because we used a technique in which we switched between a science target and a reference star of similar brightness. This target and reference switching allows for post processing PSF subtraction.

Throughout the night, we had some special guest appearances. First and foremost, Steward observatories very own Director Buell Jannuzi stopped by to see how remote observations were going. Shortly after, MagAO-X alumni, Maggie Kautz showed up and Josh proceeded to give her an overview of the current state of the instrument and the science being done.

Around 10:00PM Tucson time, the second shift relieved the first shift of their duty. Shout out to Katie for making a Costco run to load up with some snacks.

The special guests didn’t stop for the night either. Our favorite little culpeo made an appearance. Jared seemed to make friends very quickly.

Color of the Day:

Average color of a culpeo shakes out to be roughly the same as “Nuthatch”.

Song of the day: