MagAO-eXtreme Posts

Photo by Eden McEwan. Actually, pretty much ALL photos below are by Eden McEwen. We’re all thankful that Eden tends to go into journalist mode during these types of events! On Friday last week (07/19), Maggie of House XWCL, first of her name, phaser of segmented apertures, protector of 1/4-20 drivers and the first piezoelectric motors, ...

For a little while in June, the gang was all back together for SPIE Tokyo. Almost felt like an observing run, but in Japan, and every telescope team you ever heard of was also having their reunions at the same time. Here’s a round up of all the MagAO-X and friends talks, posters, and proceedings. ...

As a thank you gift for Jared’s advising throughout my grad school experience, I wanted to give a knockout gift. Sebastiaan once offhandedly mentioned a useless box. Now, I LOVE useless boxes. When I was a teacher I stumbled across a useless box video which made me cackle; two years later my ...

It’s been quite a week for our intrepid veteran-turned-teacher-turned-professional-astrophysicist. The hardest part of the dissertation defense is usually scheduling it at a time all your committee members can attend, and this time was no different. In true Texan style, Logan lassoed her committee and roped them in to a defense in-person and online this June ...

XWCL has a lot to be proud of this graduation season. Our best and brightest donned their funny hats and walked across their stages. What? You haven’t seen their defense blogs yet? Shhhh. The actual degree part, they’ll get there. Today is for celebrating! First up was the Optical Science graduation. Maggie and Co. lining up for ...

Chanco Cheese: Chilean cheese. Rating: 4/10 This cheese tasted a lot better on the first day of the MagAO-X observing run. However, by day 17, the mild flavor of the Chilean Chanco cheese just did not speak to me in the same way. Chanco Served With Jam Chilean cheese with jam. Rating: 7/10 My decision to combine Chanco with jam at ...

The Picard Principle states: “It is possible to commit no mistakes, and still lose.” https://youtu.be/1TCX90yALsI?si=dY8dZX1d97iGYAr0 That is life. My wrap-up posts have always been somewhat triumphant. But not this time, ‘cuz that just sucked. To be clear the MagAO-X team did what they always do, and the instrument was ready to rock like we always keep it. ...

Last time, on extreme.ao: We were still having weather. Your AO operator valiantly tried to lock the loop on a 10th magnitude star through patchy cirrus before our observers took pity and let us switch to something brighter. But finally TO Hernán got the call, stepped outside for some professional cloud watching, and the dome ...

Hi! I’m Jensen, a PhD student at MIT and one of this run’s guest observers. This was my first time at Las Campanas Observatory (or any observatory, for that matter), so naturally the universe bestowed upon us the cloudiest, windiest, rainiest, and snowiest May week at LCO in recent memory. The usually featureless “Metro”blue forecasts ...

Does it dry up like puddles in a dome floor?Or fester like astronomers on night schedules with nothing to do?Does it stink like the Atacama desert in the rain?Or crust and sugar over like flan in the LCO dining room fridge?Maybe it just sags like Gabriele’s shoulders?Or does it explode? The rain has stopped and the ...