MagAO-eXtreme Posts

Before we shut MagAO-X down to prepare it for the summit, we had some last-minute tests to do. Over breakfast, Laird and Jared kept talking about “doing the green laser”, which I assumed was some kind of dance move and/or illicit drug. It turns out they actually wanted to send a green laser through the ...

The Leiden team is so back! It is now the Europeans’ turn to tell you about their magical journey to LCO. Throughout the full blog post, we will also play a little game: Find the differences! We left Amsterdam without delay and got to Madrid 6 hours before our next flight. Plenty of time to waste ...

Hey it’s ya boi, JK. No really, Jay here with the latest updates pertaining to the 2025A run. We experienced a very colorful and interesting journey getting here, as we saw in Parker’s previous post. That entire expedition had us pretty much saying to each other out loud, ““Where are you Going? So full of ...

Our travel adventures started in Tucson with joy, enthusiasm, and most importantly, an on-time departure to Atlanta. We carried this positivity through lunch, where we stopped at Jared’s Go To spot. We followed that up with some grease from TGIF’s. As they say, all good things must come to an end, and sure enough our flight ...

…to defeat…chronic back pain. Or something like that. Yesterday, the MagAO-X team partook in rigging and crane safety training (or craining for short). “Why do we need a blog post about rigging? I just don’t get it!” ~ Anonymous MagAO-X Team Member Fair point, anonymous group member. However, plenty of excitement occurs during crainings. I have ...

The Europeans Once upon a time, not so long ago… “Well, it can’t get worse than this!” Elena Tonucci on the length of her journey, Santiago de Chile, 23rd November 2024 “I never lost my luggage!” Sebastiaan Haffert, Santiago de Chile, 23rd November 2024 Yes, dear friends, these are real statements that our heroes have pronounced at the beginning of their ...

Did you know it’s voting day in Chile? A whole national holiday, everyone off the mountain to go participate in government. (Well not viscachas. But all the human crew.) Really! They brought the turno bus up on the weekend, instead of a typical Tuesday. The summit was going to be mine, a little staycation, ...

Today, the night crew from telescope removal day attempted to get back on to a day schedule, which is always so much harder than it sounds. Additionally, we bid farewell to Laird and Jialin! Before he left, Laird gave his stamp of approval towards the state of the instrument after Eden was able to successfully ...

Today was dedicated to removing MagAO-X from the platform and safely returning it to the cleanroom. It feels like just yesterday we were taking it out of the cleanroom, but time sure flies by when you are surrounded by great company and beautiful mountains. However, Elena and Sebastiaan started their journey back to Leiden around ...

It’s nearly three weeks into this observing run and being stuck on this mountain together has finally driven us to form opposing factions. Professor Laird Close fearlessly leads the “day shift” camp: holders of doctoral degrees, champions of going to bed at a reasonable hour, and cart-building aficionados. The second “night shift” faction is largely ...