2014A Day 6: We’re okay – Extreme Wavefront Control Lab

You may have heard that a magnitude~8 earthquake struck northern Chile after dinnertime. Thanks for all your checking-in emails, and we are happy to say that we did not feel the earthquake at all; it was up in way way northern Chile and we are approximately central:

thanks for emailing us to see if we're alive everyone — LCO is about halfway down Chile and the earthquake was way up in the north.

Our thoughts and well-wishes are with the people affected.

Ya-Lin arrived safely this afternoon.
Today we worked all day and all night so I have a lot of pictures to catch you up.
Yesterday Pato balanced the telescope and I got a good view from the catwalk. Povilas was working on alignment.

blue — Here’s what the ASM looks like hung up above the telescope

so tired — This is what the crosshairs look like on the ASM cap for fiducial alignment. On the left is a picture of the crosshair taken from standing on the NAS through a telescope Povilas had connected for alignment. On the right is me looking tired.

Today we installed the rest of our instrument: the NAS ring that holds VisAO and the wavefront sensor, and then Clio mounts to that ring.

Through the wind tunnel — The crew pushes the NAS ring from the Aux to the telescope

stripey — Emilio and the crew work on the NAS while Fernando looks on

anananaconda — Jared and Laird cable up the NAS

good work crew — The crew put Clio on the NAS

It doesn't — We are carefully checking to see if Clio is going to fit with the new dust covers

she looks pretty — T.J., Povilas, and Jared checking out Clio

photo-awesoming — Clio attached to the NAS

pink pigtails — The Clio umbilical after we wrapped it all up

cooled down just fine — Clio temperatures are good

well we still have to boot off it — Clio cloning successful

Then we turned on all our various cooling systems before powering everything on.

windy — Laird showed me the fans for cooling the ASM heat-exchange glycol

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will be built on a neighboring peak, and so Antonin Bouchez (the AO lead on GMT) and colleague are up here to look in on what it’s like to install and bring online an AO system up here. We are happy to be their pathfinder and to host their visit.

it worked! — Jared, Antonin, and Laird look on as Alfio and I power up the ASM

I think we need a handle on that wall just for this job — Laird is plugging in the single-phase and 3-phase power sources for the ASM, while I am hoping he doesn’t fall off the ladder

she looks good — Laird and Alfio check out the ASM gui

Oh, you have to DOUBLE click to check the actuators! — Up in the Clay control room after powering on the ASM, Alfio and I are checking that everything is ok while Antonin and Laird look on

Tonight we wanted to go on-sky for the first time, but unfortunately we had a major issue with the guider communications and software. TBD, check back in tomorrow.

Did I mention that we worked all day and all night?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz — T.J. fell asleep at the Clio workstation while waiting for the dome to open.

did everybody leave? — I passed out on the couch in the lounge.

The song of the day is a change-up of genres. It’s a fun one, Lonely Boy by Mnozil Brass. Enjoy!