Clio posts

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 ...

2M1207 b (pronounced two-mass-twelve-oh-seven-bee) is often considered the first directly imaged extrasolar planet. Though its primary star, 2M1207 A, is actually a brown dwarf, b shares many properties with the HR 8799 planets. Andy Skemer analyzed images taken with MagAO+Clio2 and compared the results with images of the HR 8799 planets taken with ...

We were clouded out tonight: Also, a truck on the highway had an accident, which closed the highway, so the new turno couldn’t get here so the day crew had to also be the TO’s at night. We’ve been away from home for ~3 weeks and everyone is tired, but we stayed up all night in ...

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 ...

Tuesdays are when LCO staff swap shifts.  A meeting is held with all technical staff, who share information in order for the handover to go smoothly.  This afternoon, the instrument staff who are keeping Clio cool met to show each other how it works.  

Manny and Richard are on their way home. Clio2 survived shipping, and is ready for MagAO to send it some flat wavefronts. The last thing the guys did was train the LCO staff on how to keep Clio cold. The next MagAO detachment leaves Tucson today. We’re on our way.

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. 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 ...

The invasion of LCO has begun. A scouting party consisting of Manny Montoya and Richard Sosa arrived this weekend and began unpacking the Clio2 infrared camera. Here is their report: Day 1: “Clio was unpacked yesterday morning and we confirmed that nothing was damaged in shipping. Clio was put on the vacuum pump ...

Clio has arrived!  The shipment containing the boxes for the instrument, ring, and rack was delivered to the cleanroom unpacking area at LCO earlier today:

Our IR science camera, Clio, has arrived in Chile and is in transit to LCO.  Here’s a pic from last month in Arizona:  Stay tuned – more updates about Clio coming soon.