MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 11: These Kids Can Ball
2019-11-17
In the gym today I noticed a bunch of new trophies. Check it out:
This is the clearly the best observatory.
These guys agree:
I missed the sunset, but came out of the cleanroom in time to catch this:
Today’s song is Miley Cyrus’s version of Jolene (the Backyard Sessions one).
MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 10: On The Correlation Between Viscachas and Windspeed
2019-11-16
As Joseph reported yesterday, we couldn’t find any sign of our viscacha friends and we suspected it was due to the high winds and colder temperatures. Today I was able to gather more evidence. A correlation is seen between the local density of viscachas and the wind speed at their location. The following plot illustrates:
We ...MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 9: Pushing buttons
2019-11-15
This was, incredibly, a zero-viscacha day. It was quite windy, a bit chilly, and there may have been a viscacha conference (¿visconferencia?) in the next valley over.
Dr. Jared R. Males, MagAO-X field biologist, in search of the elusive wild viscacha. Or just stretching his legs after a long day of coding.
Meanwhile, in MagAO-X land, we ...MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 8: And then there were two
2019-11-14
Two days left on the mountain, and two people left from our group. This morning Laird, Amali, Emily, and Katie headed back to Arizona. That means that it’s just me and Jared here from the XWCL. I have another full day, while Jared remains until Wednesday—with only the video chats of Olivier Guyon (international astronomical ...MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 7: I broke Megadesk.
2019-11-13
Friends, this was supposed to be a celebratory blog post.
My web-based interface to MagAO-X is getting to the stage where it’s actually useful. My suitcase finally arrived from airline purgatory. I finished my SPIE 2020 abstract. I found out how to make the soda machine dispense plain fizzy water (my one non-caffeinated vice).
However, fate ...MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 6: Keeping The Loop Closed
2019-11-12
Well I forgot to take many pictures today, and I forgot to motivate someone else to write the blog.
We got lots of work done today. Laird and Alex tested the alignment laser system. Kyle perfected a big part of our offloading system (where we send commands to the telescope from when our AO system needs ...MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 5: Airy Disks
2019-11-11
Today we got our first proper airy disk at LCO!
This morning, Laird and Alex rotated the K-mirror to a more optimal position and re-aligned the rest of the optical train. I switched out a board in an ALPAO driver to one that lets us power the NCPC (non-common-path-corrector) DM remotely, which saves us many hypothetical ...MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 4: Survival
2019-11-10
MagAO-X is alive! After being boxed up, shipped from Tucson to Phoenix to LA (we think — a little fuzzy) to Miami, with a long pause, then to Santiago, braving the dangers of revolution (and customs (and customs strikes!)), and a trip by truck (always touchy, this time with road blocks!), and finally being craned ...MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 3: Cabling
2019-11-09
Well it was another long but successful day for MagAO-X. We fully integrated the electronics rack with the instrument and began the optical alignment! Impressively, the optical alignment looked almost exactly the way we left it in Tucson. After all that MagAO-X has been through on its way to Chile, we were worried that the ...MagAO-X 2019B Unpacking Day 2: MagAO-X Does Bongs
2019-11-08
Unpacking Day 2 marks the 3rd day of MagAO-X unpacking activities, which only makes sense if you’re a computer scientist or you just try not to think about it too much.
Alex and Laird began the day by removing the teflon bars that had been installed in front of particularly expensive optics for protection during shipping.
Laird ...
Adaptive optics from infrared to visible wavelengths at the University of Arizona
Home of MagAO-X and MagAO