Category: MagAO-X

MagAO-X 2026A Day 1: It’s official.

Today, we’re officially officials of the official pre-observing engineering duties for MagAO-X officials. We officially go on-sky on March 25 so we’ve got a jam-packed list of things to knock out before then. Since we arrived on the mountain without delays yesterday, we elected to dedicate the rest of the day/night Saturday for healing after the long trip, which was much appreciated. Today, after breakfast, Jared, Eden, and I promptly headed back to the cleanroom to get to work.

quick OOOTD fit check before some hardcore clean room activities

The first step was to de-cable the electronics rack and instrument which Eden and I made quick work of…! This is because we eventually needed to push the rack and instrument into the clean room such that the real instrumentation work can begin ASAP.

After separating the components, we then addressed the screw jacks that allow us to raise and lower the instrument for precision leveling and telescope alignment on the platform. You see, we were losing screw thread integrity across several bolts very quickly due to (we suspect) galling. To fix this issue, we installed new black oxide screws for better compatibility with the stainless threads. Will this solve our screw jack issues? Time will tell.

Oh yeah, and since today was Sunday…

After empanada lunch, we were soon joined by our resident expert in polarimetry who was v quick and eager to get to work.

One of the big ticket items to address today was a mysterious and yet sudden increase in the measured humidity in the air that feed the DM enclosures within the instrument. Since humidity levels can invite corrosion (hence damage) in our MEMS DMs, it’s important that we investigated the quality of the air coming out of the clean room air supply. However, when we started scrutinizing the various components of the air feed system, we noticed exhausted desiccant and a compressed air drier full of water. Not great, but the drier can be drained and the desiccant replaced. However, when we drained the drier and re-connected the air tube back to the supply it filled back up almost immediately…! In fact, we disconnected the air hose at an intermediate point while it was still connected to the supply at the back wall and we had a full-on mini fire hose in our hands…!! This could have obviously led to a catastrophe of epic proportions, but disturbingly didn’t. It’s clear that our desiccant can work miracles or something.

This little air hose was legit hosing down the walls of the clean room with the amount of water coming out of it

Obviously we’re a bit dead in the water while this issue gets addressed as we can’t operate the DMs or float the table at this point. To cap off the work day, we worked on installing liquid cooling for the Kinetix cameras in the instrument in an effort to address bench seeing caused by thermal gradients. This way, the heat generated by these fast-running cameras will get flushed out rather efficiently and released far from the telescope. This portion of the work day involved lots and lots of hosing, (back)flushing, and glycol which is always fun.

glycol hoses can spout like a whale
keep your friends close
thankful for gravity

As such, the color of the day is:

really leak-proof glycol pink!

We ended the work day with final install of all our custom-made glycol hosing for the Kinetix cameras for FLOWFS and LLOWFS. After clamping it all down, we intitiated a leak test by pressurizing the (empty) glycol tubing with air to 12 PSI with the intent to see if the pressure decreases overnight. If it doesn’t, then we’re good to refill the instrument glycol system and move onto the next project! We’ll check on it in the morning, so stay tuned for tomorrow’s post to hear about the results.

Song of the Day

If arts and crafts with glycol tubing was a guitar riff…

MagAO-X 2026A Day 0: On a plane already?

Flying out on Friday the 13th comes with some ominous portents. Thankfully, we only seemed to be hexed with suboptimal seat assignments and the briefest of turbulence. As of writing the early crew has made it safely to LCO, tucked in and ready to start fresh tomorrow morning.

Proof of life.

For all those traveling later, know that there are some tasty cafes right outside the B terminal now. Post security no longer contains the only sustenance offerings. The Starbucks by luggage check-in has, in fact, even kept up the important renaming ritual.

Jerry, Jen, and Iren – now caffeinated.

The welcoming committee to LCO was packed. Just as we turned off the highway a large wild horse heard greeted us. We ran into even more at the top of the mountain.

White horse in line.
Sharing the road.
Not sharing the road.

A family of Burros we’ve never seen before met us in the basin. One family was very bright white too! The more local mountain burros looked to have welcomed some new members recently as well.

Albino and family.
Fluffball and family.

After a quick dinner (thank you chefs for staying open for us) Jay and I took a walk to double check we had our essentials in play. It looks like we’re all ready for tomorrow!

Cleanroom vizzy.
MagAO-X in the cleanroom room.

The mythical white horse, the albino burro, and auspicious vizzy all must mean something. I’m sure we’ll be able to interpret these portents by the end of the run.

Color of the day: Prophetic Albino Burro White

Blog Rules: Color of the day

  1. Every blog should include a color of the day. (Interpretative, but bonus points if a swatch of the color is included)
  2. The color should be a reference to a blog occurrence or the song of the day
  3. There shall be a song of the day, linked, with song title and artist in the description. (Sometimes the link dies, and the description helps us find it later.)

This is inspired by my love of dialed the color memorization game, and the fact you can color swatch your own photos.

Song of the Day:

You know, I just see horses and I know there’s a way.

Horses by Maggie Rogers

MagAO-X at Spirit of Lyot 6: The Haunting of Baxter Hall

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA – Every few years, an eclectic group of scientists and engineers gathers in a scenic location to discuss the minutiae that come with taking pictures of really dim things next to really bright things. The Spirit of Lyot conference is named for one Bernard Lyot, a French astronomer known for inventing an instrument to observe the Sun’s corona without having to wait around for a solar eclipse. 

Early on in the conference, one of the organizers clarified that this gathering was about Lyot’s “spirit” meaning legacy, not his literal ghost. Now, we here at MagAO-X most certainly honor Lyot’s high-contrast legacy by observing binaries, disks, and planets. But, it’s also worth mentioning that if there’s one thing optical engineers are haunted by, it’s ghosts.

For those unfamiliar, a ghost is a technical term used in optics to describe an unwanted reflection. Put simply, this could be anything from seeing your own face reflected back at you when you’re trying to look out the window to having your laser bounce back off lenses it’s supposed to transmit through. Optical ghosts are pernicious little things; they can cause unwanted spots on your camera or even render your g-band filter practically useless. They’re difficult to get rid of, but pretty easy to introduce. So, in order to understand Dr. Bernard Lyot’s true opinion of MagAO-X’s contribution to his conference, I have taken it upon myself to summon his (optical) ghost this Friday the 13th and ask about his approval or disapproval on some things we did last week.

whether or not this is *technically* a ghost is up for debate, but I certainly consider seeing myself in my laptop screen as an “unwanted reflection”

APPROVED: A Plethora of Posters

From graduate students to postdocs, Lyot agrees we kept MagAO-X well-represented at both poster sessions throughout the week. In no particular order:

And this isn’t even all of them!

DISAPPROVED: Yassification

“Mais c’est quoi ça??”

-the spirit of Lyot, upon being shown the AI-yassified versions of our poster presentation photos

Out of respect for him (and Hayao Miyazaki), I will not include them here.

APPROVED: Talks on Talks on Talks

During the instrumentation sessions, we found ourselves well-represented. On Thursday, Jared talked about next-generation HCI with GMagAO-X, Laird got the chance to talk about WISPIT 2b, and Miles did some polarimetry show-and-tell about some disk observations. We also got to hear talks from Rico, Louis, and Adam, members of Sebastiaan’s group in Leiden, and Saraswathi, a postdoc from UASAL.

On Friday, Josh told us about the highs and lows of building the Self-Coherent Camera on the CACTI testbed, and Sebastiaan closed out the MagAO-X talks by giving an overview of the many, many emerging technologies in our field.

DISAPPROVED: Upside-down Glasses

A couple of us took the chance to tour NASA JPL, which got a seal of approval from both the four of us and the Spirit of Lyot. However, he (rightfully) poked fun at the picture of my failure to understand how 3D glasses work.

our girl voyager
ooooh ahhhh
Jay’s kryptonite around every corner

APPROVED: Family Dinner

The conference dinner was held at Caltech’s Athenaeum. Not everyone could make it (places to be, e.g. Target), so we made sure to get a family photo beforehand.

say cheese!

DISAPPROVED: Etiquette Ignorance

I have no visual to illustrate this, but let’s just say Parker and I exchanged a very panicked glance when we saw the number of utensils we were expected to use at this dinner. Luckily we had a couple of former Navy Nukes to teach us the difference between a salad fork and a regular one.

APPROVED: Astro-tourism

If you believe his Wikipedia page, Lyot was also an avid mountaineer and even trekked to the Pic du Midi observatory when it was only accessible by cross-country ski. Naturally, his spirit approved of the group that stayed a little bit longer to make the journey up Mount Wilson.

c = 3×10^8 m/s

DISAPPROVED: A Seat-cushion Mishap

Ever wondered why, during the standard aircraft safety briefing, they tell you to ask for assistance if you lose an electronic device in your seat? Well, I no longer wonder that. Let’s just say the pilot himself came out to help at one point. The important part is that Josh and his earbud were reunited, safe and sound.

APPROVED: Song of the Day

In the spirit of Lyot: a French song that talks about both the Sun and finding something that exists, but was hiding:

Solarium – Radio Elvis

MagAO-X 2025B Day 21: Today is Tomorrow

Phil: Do you know what day it is?
Rita: No, what?
Phil: Today is tomorrow. It happened.

— Groundhog Day (1993)

This will be my 571st night at LCO (and this is my 270th blog post).

I feel like one always gets into a rhythm on a long observing run. It might take a while — with MagAO-X we always start with a frantic lab period, installing the latest crazy upgrades and tuning the instrument up. Then there’s “the day”, where we go 24 hours all at once to move up to the telescope. That helps with the transition, since you’re so tired after that you can’t help but sleep at 8 am. Then after about a week your body starts to adjust, and you can sleep a little later into the afternoon. One night turns into another, and you start to wonder if you’ve ever had a different day. But now we get to go find out what those different days are like.

Part of the crew departed this morning. The rest of us tomorrow.

MagAO-X works because of our great team. Thanks everybody for the hard work. And thanks to our great observers who bring us such interesting projects and challenging observations. See you next time.

As has become our normal practice, we have left MagAO-X set up for remote operations in the LCO cleanroom. This time it’s a little different, since we put it in the corner to keep the tent clear for another instrument. Fits just fine over there.

Of course we couldn’t just leave. There’s always something to work on.

We have exciting new things planned for next semester, so exciting we may have to change the way the blog works!

The bird-poop selfie is an ancient tradition, harkening back to the age of legends.
The sky looks clear — but those clouds are closer than they appear.

Fun Fact: Imbolc is the old Gaelic name for what became Saint Bridget’s day, and is a seasonal festival marking the turning of Winter into Spring. The ancient goddess Brigid was welcomed into homes at Imbolc with hopes for a quick end to Winter and a warm Spring. Part of this festival included watching for animals to emerge, and to see if the hag Cailleach arranges for good weather so she can gather lots of firewood for the long remaining winter ahead. Does that sound familiar? Well, that just might be where modern Groundhog Day comes from.

And here’s a song about Bridget.

This is a good lullaby

This song has been on a MAPS run before. The artist, Celia Farran, was just in Tucson for the Celtic Festival — but we didn’t find out about it until it was too late.

MagAO-X 2025B Day 20: Head in the clouds

Dear Vizzy,

We missed you! It’s been a whole MagAO-X observing run since we last saw you. We checked every day on our way up, but it seems like you were busy with other business.

Señor cleanroom Vizzy.

Last night, or morning? We had our last hurrah in the control room.

Everyone in the control room one last time.

Our take down crew went to bed early, but the night crew holdouts worked on Sebastiaan’s targets until the clouds told us it was time to pack up.

Clouds through the moonglow.
“How am I expected to work in these conditions?”

The night crew’s responsible for shutting everything down, and tucking all the cables away before craning operations start. Though I’m sure you’ve heard us up to this before.

Face of a man about to take darks.
The optimal position for deconstructing MagAO-X earthquake preparations

You might have seen quite a few cars swinging up and down the road to the cleanroom this morning. Josh and Parker were running up and down on errands before then we fully swapped with the day crew. I’m happy to report that both crews got a filling and balanced breakfast.

Rolling out the electronics rack.
Unhooking the control room.
An emptying NASE platform.

How did the day crew do? I heard they had some trouble with the bolt holes in the legs. Thank goodness the LCO crew is around to help when nuts get stuck. As you must have seen, MagAO-X is back in the clean room in good time. Some of us are sticking around one more day to attach all the sensitive parts and make sure it’s ready for remote observation.

Pondering above the fog.
Evening walk to the small scopes.

I hope you’re staying warm with all these clouds coming through. We got one good walk in before they fully swallowed the mountaintop. The moisture in the air was just enough for us to finally smell the flowers. Also we finally had some free time to smell the flowers.

Geometry measurements of CLIO.
All packed up for the trip to AZ.

Don’t forget to say hi to Manny! It’s been a while since the last time he was here but we promise he’s friendly. He just got here yesterday, but he’s already gotten so much of CLIO into a box.

The clouds finally covering the mountainside.

Sorry for all the noise by nap spot in the eves. I promise things will start to quiet down soon. Till next time,

Eden

P.S Song of the Day

Great No One by The Beths

P.P.S. Fun Fact.

Did you know that Seattle, USA has more cloudy days than London, UK?

P.P.P.S. Laird said to tell you hello.