Unpacking Day 7: Clocked Guanaco (shaken, not stirred)

One week in, MagAO shows no signs of slowing down. After starting our day with a hacksaw, and some shaky ground, we prepared the shell for mounting on the ASM reference body and made our first go at it. The shell was clocked slightly, meaning that the magnets don’t quite line up with their holes in the reference body. We have rotated it, and first thing in the morning we’ll retry. In other news: VisAO is back in action, the NAS is shaping up, and we met some of the other residents of LCO.

Bent Pin — Here's the offending bent pin from this morning. We had to use a hacksaw to get it out.

Earthquake — MagAO survived its first Chilean earthquake. It was a small 3.9 mag tremor, but it was close. Lots of people felt it last night. This is an ever-present danger here, and this was a good reminder to 'stow for sea' every night.

Frederico Working on the ASM — Here's Frederico preparing the ASM for shell mounting.

The shell was carefully cleaned before mounting:

Raising the Shell — The shell is slowly raised with a hand crank, with many pairs of eyeballs watching for trouble.

Almost There — Here the shell is getting close. A little bit later we decided that the magnets didn't quite line up with their actuators and so lowered the shell again.

Just in case someone forgets why we're here . . . — At the end of the day, the re-clocked shell is back on the flipping bench waiting to be mounted in the morning.

Tipping the NAS — We mounted our VisAO electronics today. You can see the holes in the side of the box where the cooling system used to be. Here we're using a crane to tip the NAS back to vertical after installing the last box.

It's gettin' hot in here . . . — We paused during tipping to measure the space we have for our cooling sytem. Tyson is helping me test fit the radiator. We now have a plan.

This is how we do it. — For the first time ever, the NAS has all of its electronics.

Tonight’s dinner quote: “That is not a camel.” (Alan Uomoto)