MagAO-Classic posts

Our CRO is a very fast f/1 optic, and our ASM makes an f/16 beam. So motions of the CRO are amplified by a factor of 16 in our focal planes. We can see this on the VisAO CCD47 as a dancing image due to small mechanical vibrations of the telescope. The MagAO project is adding ...

Today we are going to explore the MagAO pupils and their corresponding transforms in the image plane, courtesy of Fourier optics. So let’s have a look at the pupil.  Here is a photo of the ASM, taken with a digital camera.  This was from before Clio was mounted, so that we just stood on the Nasmyth ...

Happy Thanksgiving!  I am thankful for clear skies, low winds, and contactless continuous facesheets. We are employing fine Italian craftsmanship to obtain the interaction matrices for our AO system, using the “penina” internal light source (an artifical star) and the CRO retro-reflector.  These are crucial calibrations for the feedback loop to create the desired shapes on ...

Alan Uomoto has been teaching us about the power supply at LCO.  Rather than calling it clean and dirty, the actual difference between the different circuitry is whether they go direct (white outlets) or through an un-interuptable power supply (UPS) (orange outlets).  Alan, this one’s for you! (And — despite how it looks from the outlets ...

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 ...

Okaayyy!!!  Allora.  The day began with some avocado slices, dos scrambled huevos, a bowl of oatmeal, two slices of cheese, two slices of breakfast cake, two glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice (delicious!), and a cafe con leche.  The food at LCO is very good and below are more pictures, for our respective mothers: After breakfast, ...

Today was the first day with all the big guns: We shimmed the ASM to put it in the middle of the range for collimation and focus. Alfio and Jared tested the Bayside stages for collisions with the telescope — all clear. Phil has been checking Clio out in the clean room, testing the motors, homing, and taking ...

Our crew is getting kind of big. Todays new arrivals were: Phil Hinz, Simone Esposito, and Enrico Pinna. This morning we finished balancing the telescope, and collimated it. We also installed our new wind meter directly under the ASM. To prepare for moving the NAS, we officially took over the Clay control room. The big task after lunch ...

Today was almost a terrifying, cutting-into-the-ASM kind of day… but a bit of organizing and sparing saved the day! See Marco’s lively post for the gory details — but we can now talk to the ASM from the control computer!!!  🙂 What happened was we thought we didn’t have the right connector to repair the damaged ...

Oh Man! Armando and I waked up having in mind to put the hands into the ASM…. what a mess!!! So GO! light breakfast with only one egg , yogurt, cheese, ham and orange juice (for me) and double ham and cheese sandwich with tea (for armando) in order to be reactive to the ASM ...