MagAO-C 2016B

  • 2016B Day 21: LAN tries to “help”

    2016-11-23

    Katie Morzinski

    2016B Day 21: LAN tries to "help"
    The MagAO team has made it to Tucson in time for Thanksgiving! And the Gemini Planet Imager team travels seem to be going well too — We ran into Jenny Patience, Julien Rameau, and Ben Gerard of GPIES at the La Serena airport, who were just coming off a 6-night GPI run. Our La Serena-Santiago ...
  • 2016B Day 20: No WiFi

    2016-11-22

    Jared Males

    I don’t have wifi in my room tonight. We’re all done, leaving tomorrow. Song of the day: Dee-ner Dee-ner Dee-ner Dee-ner, Dee-ner Dee-ner Dee-ner Dee-ner, Dee-ner Dee-ner Dee-ner Dee-ner, Dee-ner Dee Dee Dee. (the rules say nothing about what form the song must take)
  • 2016B Day 19: 2000 to 0

    2016-11-21

    Katie Morzinski

    2016B Day 19: 2000 to 0
    We went from 2000 Hz to 0 in 1 day: The ASM, the NAS, and Clio all came off the telescope today. That was it; then it was bedtime. Thanks to the technical crew for their hard work getting the Clay switched over in 1 day, and to the humanitarian crew for the delicious dinner ...
  • 2016B Day 18: Last Night

    2016-11-20

    Jared Males

    2016B Day 18: Last Night
    Well that sucked. We ended our run with a crap night, high winds, higher seeing, and jumping actuators. MagAO comes off in the morning, so that’s it. The burros made me think of this.
  • 2016B Day 17: Introducing MagAO 2K

    2016-11-19

    Kate Follette

    2016B Day 17: Introducing MagAO 2K
    Today was a bit rough, with high winds and heavy cloud cover. But… through the clouds… a beacon of light. Specifically a kick-a** high resolution AO-corrected PSF without the ever-present wind butterfly because… the MagAO adaptive secondary mirror is now officially deforming to correct for the atmosphere at 2000 times per second, twice as ...
  • 2016B Day 16: 1.6 kHz

    2016-11-18

    Katie Morzinski

    2016B Day 16: 1.6 kHz
    Tonight Clio and VisAO were together again — except we didn’t do much together. Separately we tested the new VisAO SDI+ mode and did some basic set-up tests on Clio. And we got AO up to 1.6 kHz! Thanks to Arcetri here and there: And the wind died down and we had as low as 0.35” ...
  • 2016B Day 15: Benvenuti nell’Ordine

    2016-11-17

    Katie Morzinski

    2016B Day 15: Benvenuti nell'Ordine
    Tonight we inducted 6 more members into L’Ordine degli Astronomi al Limite di Diffrazione: we observed Mira A and B through the eyepiece. First on the list was Alfio who helped us come up with the name for L’Ordine. Then we got back to work, testing and debugging our new modes, interaction matrices, and higher frequency.
  • 2016B Day 14: Day 303

    2016-11-16

    Jared Males

    2016B Day 14: Day 303
    This is my 303rd day spent at LCO. Most of our crew of AOistas have left, it’s down to just Laird, Alfio, Katie, and Jared, with the addition of Kate who joined us tonight.
  • 2016B Day 13: Return of the CRO

    2016-11-15

    Katie Morzinski

    2016B Day 13: Return of the CRO
    Marco, Runa, Enrico, and Fernando left yesterday. Kelsey and Lauren left today. And Simone and Armando are leaving tomorrow. After Laird’s very nice technical post yesterday, I will just have some pretty pictures for today. We started the evening with a very delicious meal of Hector’s pizza which is so good! Then we got back ...
  • 2016B Day 12: MagAO is back on-sky Closed Loop (400 modes 1kHz)

    2016-11-14

    Laird Close

    2016B Day 12: MagAO is back on-sky Closed Loop (400 modes 1kHz)
    Great News MagAO’ers and lovers of the Blog Today we went on-sky after a day of taking interaction matrices (IMATs). We have made many improvements to MagAO since we had to also rebuild so much after the glycol leak. It has been a 10 month saga that has been quite a strain on all of us — ...
  • 2016B Day 11: I’ve had it with this monkey fighting Viscacha in this Monday to Friday pupil!

    2016-11-13

    Jared Males

    2016B Day 11: I've had it with this monkey fighting Viscacha in this Monday to Friday pupil!
    Do you remember the Viscacha that sometimes sneaks into our pupils? This is a problem when our mirror is uncalibrated, and the signal it sends to the pyramid wavefront sensor confuses our software. We get dark spots in the pupil (images of the secondary) that often look like our Viscacha friends. They ...
  • 2016B Day 10: Snakes on a Nasmyth

    2016-11-12

    Kelsey Miller

    2016B Day 10: Snakes on a Nasmyth
    Today was an exciting day for the whole team: MagAO is mounted, poised, and ready to go! The adsec is back, has been flattened, and is lookin’ good (after extensive reconstructive surgery). The pyramid wavefront sensor has been updated (and is swankier than ever). And finally, MagAO is bolted to the Clay telescope, and is ready to show ...
  • 2016B Day 9: The Odyssey

    2016-11-11

    Lauren Schatz

    2016B Day 9: The Odyssey
    Commissioning is a long and windy road, not unlike Odysseus’ journey in the Odyssey. The MagAO team has traveled half way around the world, and have had our share of battling monsters (like our deformable mirror!), and treasure hunts (to spot that elusive green flash!). We are so close to the end of our journey, ...
  • 2016B Day 8: Far Away

    2016-11-10

    Katie Morzinski

    2016B Day 8: Far Away
    Happy to report Simone and Armando arrived safely today.
  • 2016B Day 7: Livin’ on the Edge

    2016-11-09

    Kelsey Miller

    2016B Day 7: Livin' on the Edge
    Were we all on edge today? Nah – not really. As scientists and engineers, do we all have a hip and edgy sense of fashion? Well obviously. But more than that, edges seemed to show up everywhere today. Inside the observatory: You see the outer edge of the pupil in this interferometric image of the adaptive secondary mirror? Yeah ...
  • 2016B Day 6: Low Latency Guanaco

    2016-11-08

    Jared Males

    2016B Day 6:  Low Latency Guanaco
    Another busy day on Cerro Manqui. Clio came up to start getting ready. Katie will begin drawing a vacuum and start the cool down process tomorrow. Most of today was spent shaking out our new 2000 Hz capability. As of tonight, thanks to Mario and Alfio, we have successfully closed the loop (with 0 gain) ...
  • 2016B Day 5: Alora Alignment

    2016-11-07

    Katie Morzinski

    2016B Day 5: Alora Alignment
    Ok Alora! Lots of aligning optics today. Kelsey and Lauren are figuring out the ropes, and Fernando arrived this evening.
  • 2016B Day 4: Tipping 2000 Hz

    2016-11-06

    Jared Males

    2016B Day 4: Tipping 2000 Hz
    After the secondary was installed yesterday, we ended up going to bed with a bad fiber running to the secondary. So the first order of business was to fix that this morning. All Done. Take it away Otis:
  • 2016B Day 3: Sleepy, Dummy, Bashful, Happy, Grumpy

    2016-11-05

    Katie Morzinski

    2016B Day 3: Sleepy, Dummy, Bashful, Happy, Grumpy
    Today the telescope became ours! The previous instrument was removed (Pisco) as well as the f/11 secondary mirror. Then we installed our adaptive secondary mirror and our “dummy Nas” which goes in place of the usual Nas to hold the interferometer for testing the ASM. It was a beautiful summer day and a lot ...
  • 2016B Day 2: The Arrival

    2016-11-04

    Jared Males

    2016B Day 2: The Arrival
    Our friends from Italy started arriving today. We welcomed Alfio, Enrico, Runa, Mario, and Marco, who are all here to help us with our upgrades and re-calibration. Much work was done!
  • 2016B Day1: Big Pete

    2016-11-03

    Katie Morzinski

    2016B Day1: Big Pete
    My oldest brother Peter gave me this awesome bright flashlight as a gift. When at home in New Mexico we use it to look for coyotes in the canyon. Here at LCO it’s good for vizcacha hunting. It’s also so bright that it’s good for measuring the pyramid wavefront sensor CCD gains ...
  • 2016B Day 0: Hemos llegado

    2016-11-02

    Katie Morzinski

    Tenemos hemos llegado! 2016B reglas del blog: Al menos un puesto es necesario cada día Se requiere una canción del día (Como lo notó Hernán aquí, no hay regla con respecto al idioma) Hoy la canción del día: Save
  • 2016B Engineering Only

    2016-03-28

    Jared Males

    Just a quick reminder for MagAO users who may be considering submitting a telescope proposal in the near future: MagAO will not be available for general use in the 2016B semester. The system will be on the telescope during the semester, but for engineering work only. This work includes recalibration, and installation of the ...