We have reached the epic conclusion of yet another AO summer school. Stay with me, dear reader, as we have much to cover:
Day 4: The Penultimate Chapter
After 4 days in Santa Cruz, I was itching to see a patented yellow slime ball, affectionately known as the “Banana Slug.” In a sort-of slug summoning ceremony, I slipped on my slug stompers at sunrise.
The morning session began with a great controls theory talk given by Dr. Nour Skaf. Sadly, Nour did not stay at the workshop for very long, as she left to begin her new faculty position at UH IFA!!! 🙂 *catjam* *catjam intensifies*
We then heard from UCO director and GPI extraordinaire, Bruce Macintosh, about error budgets within AO systems.
After a long morning’s work AO-ing, it was time to take a brief nap:
Following a quick nap, we worked on an AO simulation workshop led by UC Santa Cruz post doc and HCIPy conspirator, Emiel Por. There are no photos from this activity so I will leave the visuals to the reader’s imagination.
After dinner, Parker went on a hike while others studied for quals or worked on grant applications:
After an unsuccessful attempt to observe some stars, we gathered outside the dorms to sit on tree stumps:
We were kind enough to include this green table in our group selfie:
Day 5: No Fish in the Microwave
The fifth and final day of the AO summer school began with an important reminder:
The final day also included talks on astrophotonics, AO in space, and AO for microscopy!
As this blog post is biased towards my areas of research interests, I included a photo from Rus Belikov’s talk of EFC being done before it was cool:
Finally, it was time for the moment that we have all been waiting for–the AO Summer School Vision Awards 2025!
I won the award for Worst Optics (I thought about contesting but I was bribed with banana slug stickers)! And Parker won the adaptive pupil award!
We then went on a social excursion to the Santa Cruz boardwalk/arcade/karaoke facility/casino/bowling alley/laser tag room!
Here’s to a successful AO summer school!
Just before leaving, we finally got some slug-tent:
I would like to dedicate this blog post to Keck’s broken dome shutter.
Song of the Day: