MagAO-Classic posts

Mal Reynolds about sums it up: Here we go. So to kick things off, we got a good shake from a nearby 5.1 magnitude earthquake. For perspective, it was big enough that it woke me up rattling things in my room, but it didn’t wake Katie up right next door. That would probably take at ...

Remember Jared’s Trouble post from a few days ago? He offered a free MagAO sticker to the first person to email what was wrong with Fig. 1. We got a few submissions that noticed the repaired fiber cable — actually that was from a couple years ago — read Marco’s hilarious post about ...

This is the end of our three-night run with MagAO. We’ve seen a little bit of everything this trip: our first night featured high winds, while the second night contained several hours of thick clouds. These things aren’t unexpected in Chile in late autumn, but what is unexpected is to be visited by aliens during an ...

I crossed the equator for the first time 3 days ago. In the Caribbean we were greeted by a magnificent light show in the distance — fireworks stochastically set off in a dense mass of ominous clouds. But by sunrise we have arrived in more congenial territory, mountainous country with a jagged horizon as far ...

MagAO run all by myself, smooth and enjoyable week, despite the clouds the high winds and one (that could have been not so small) problem. After 7 nights I’m ready to go home…  I gave some serious thought about a song that would express exactly how that feels, after a short search I found the perfect ...

So Francois Menard finally left, and everything got better. We had our first clear, calm, good-seeing night of the run. That being said, we had a communications problem with the ASM last night that probably can’t be blamed on the weather. As always happens, such events happen after midnight on Saturday ...

To the Various Mothers! So here are some pictures for our various mothers: There was a big rain storm in northern Chile in March. The grass is green and growing on this typically brown mountain. Here are Yuri Beletsky’s beautiful photos: And my photo: Quotes from last week: Asking the observer on Baade about her night: “How was your ...

This is the 300th blog post. ~40 posts per run adds up quick. The word of the day is wasabi. They served sushi tonight, which was great, but for some reason several people (all of whom should have known better) thought the thick green paste was just a harmless spread and applied it accordingly. ...

The word of the day is windy. Tonight was so windy we could barely open. From the night report by TO Mauricio Martinez: 3.- 23:40 UT High winds for MagAO, Closed. /MMa 4.- 01:56 UT Opened. /MMa 5.- 02:18 UT High winds for MagAO, Closed. /MMa 6.- 03:59 UT Opened, SH Conemode enabled, with better sky condition, ...

Gilles reporting in for the daily MagAO blog. Word of the day is “sleepy”. After being blasted by winds in the previous nights, this night was surprisingly calm (*COUGH*andcloudy*COUGH*). This gave the team the opportunity to relax a bit and work on some maintenance and documentation that needed to be done. Jared, Katie & Laird are slowly recovering ...