MagAO-eXtreme Posts

So it’s finally time to write my first blog post! My name is Alex Hedglen and I’m a 3rd year Optical Sciences PhD student at the University of Arizona! I’ve been involved with MagAO-X for the past couple of years, mainly helping Laird with the optomechanical design and alignment of the instrument. My first ...

MagAO-X is now at Las Campanas Observatory! The truck finally made it up the hill at about 3 pm, and we got all of our boxes safely off. Things are pretty busy, with MagAO-C and now MagAO-X unpacking. There are lots more cool pictures, but not enough time to post them. I am bound by the ...

Well we made it through customs, and are on a truck. We expect delivery of MagAO-X to LCO around 2 pm local time tomorrow afternoon. Otherwise, it was all MagAO-C all the time. If you’ve ever been to an NBA game, you’ll recognize this song. If MagAO-X arrives safely, I plan to make Laird, Kyle, and ...

MagAO-X arrived in Santiago yesterday! There’s even a chance that it gets to LCO tomorrow. My plan has been to call “Day 0” the day it actually arrives, so maybe we have to reset the blog counter. Alex v2 and Kyle arrive today. Other than Jared and Laird worrying about it, no MagAO-X work was done ...

MagAO-X is probably in Santiago.  But the shipper isn’t updating their website, so . . . We unpacked some stuff that we shipped down to help with MagAO-X, so it wasn’t all MagAO-C. The MagAO-X song of the day is Alive, by Pearl Jam:

Laird and I arrived back at LCO last night. It’s been 18 months since we were here. Lots of little changes, and some new faces around the mountain — but it’s mostly the same as it ever was. We’re supposed to be unpacking our new instrument MagAO-X. But . . . our shipment has been delayed ...

Today, we handed MagAO-X off to the shipping contractor (all 2961 kg / 6527 lb / 3.26 tons of it). Our dinky little forklift was not up to the task, so Southwest Industrial Rigging Inc. was called in. MagAO-X leaving the Steward Observatory loading dock under the supervision of riggers (center, right), grad students (behind camera), ...

It’s been a very busy 6 weeks since we passed PSR and received the approval to ship out MagAO-X. In those 6 weeks, we’ve been working on putting the final touches for the instrument. On October 2, we were scheduled for moving the MagAO-X instrument into its shipping crate, which means lots and lots of ...

Last Friday, MagAO-X underwent a pre-shipment review. This is the process by which the Magellan Observatory ensures that we won’t waste everyone’s time by shipping our instrument to the telescope. It’s a multifaceted process, evaluating everything from “does your instrument work in the lab?” to “have you baked your shipping crate?” I’m happy to report that ...

Tucson in the summer is a bit like this, only less exciting. However, summer is waning. (Why, it’s only 99ºF at 7:00 p.m. as I’m writing this!) Tucson is filling back up with new and returning students, and I’m no longer guaranteed a table to myself at my favorite coffee shop. This semester, we are happy to ...