Happy new year from MagAO-X! The instrument is back in the lab, and today we opened the panels for the first time to find that no optics have been damaged! “Another happy landing,” as Obi-Wan would say.
On January 10, MagAO-X arrived at the University of Arizona. Southwest Rigging used the forklift to bring the boxes down to the Steward Observatory loading dock.
Eventually we managed to unpack MagAO-X and the electronics rack. We brought them up to the lab, rebuilt the clean room, and today we opened it up!
We are just about ready to cable up the instrument and turn everything on. Over the next two months, we will do a lot of software testing and install a few new components into the system. By April 10, MagAO-X will ship back to Chile and we will return to the desert for the next telescope run on May 3 – 10.