MagAO-eXtreme Posts

One of the big goals for this visit to LCO was to troubleshoot a coupled pair of actuators on our precious 2040 actuator “tweeter” deformable mirror (DM). Being coupled meant that when we poked actuator 498, actuator 650 moved (not 498). Actuator 650 also moved when we poked 650. We first noticed ...

Let me tell you about our trip. Jared and I were scheduled to leave on Thurs. 09/27, however our Tucson flight was delayed to the point where we would have missed our ATL-SCL connection, so we got the opportunity to rebook. Whether or not this was due to Hurricane Helene, we’re not sure. Because ATL-SCL on ...

Caught the 0830 transport down this morning. Irony of ironies, this may have been the most stunningly clear blue Chile-wide sky I’ve ever seen. Caveat: I’m usually coming off a weeks-long night-schedule average 4 or 5 hrs of sleep, so not usually awake for any of this trip. Not a cloud in the sky at sunrise, ...

My short visit was a success. Got our cooling system back to nominal, and installed and tested cables for our new cam-yo-fiz. Clouds aren’t so bad when you’re above them A good lunch to warm up with. It’s cold. Beef meatballs on pasta, and some very garlicy tomatoes and avocado. My PhD project sits forlornly ...

I popped down to LCO from Tucson for a quick visit to fix some cooling issues and test some new cables. I left 40 C in Tucson and arrived to 40 F at LCO. On my flight down I was somewhat surprised to see that Laird was coming with me. Laird and Shannon were ...

At risk of not being able to show my face in Eden’s upcoming quals study session, I hereby present to you the Sagan Summer Workshop 2024–a journey through space and time . But first, here’s a clip of the Journey cover band that blessed my ears on my first night in California. Journey(?) coming to you live ...

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 ...