2014A – Extreme Wavefront Control Lab

2014A Day 30: Send Me On My Way

We’ve departed the mountain. Thanks for hosting our first full science run, LCO, and we’ll see you next time.

at dawn. We were in a hurry to get some cerveza in La Serena. — Our transport awaits

Send me on my way — Our driver loads up the transport

It's a pretty place — Sunrise as we’re leaving

Till next time — Goodbye to Clay and Baade

Don't be offended, but we're happy to be leaving. See you soon though. — Saying goodbye to the observatory

We'll be home soon — The Pan American Highway

2014A Day 29: All Packed Up

We packed everything up and left the mountain, and now I’ve gotten enough sleep I’m finally awake enough to post some pictures for you.

The crew spent most of the day putting MegaCam on the telescope, which uses the F/5 they put on the day before. It’s a big job, being one of the biggest and heaviest instruments.

It's big and heavy — Victor and Francesco lift MegaCam up through the floor

And all it does is lift MegaCam up and down. — MegaCam and Cartzilla. Cartzilla is so big and heavy they have to take down a post to fit it through the door, and it has to drive on tracks so it doesn’t fall through the floor.

Then they had some time to squeeze in taking Clio2 and the MagAO NAS off the telescope before supper.

while the rest of us look on — Felix prepares to take Clio2 off the NAS

Thanks for your hard work guys! — Felix, Juan, and the crew prepare to lift the NAS off the telescope. They worked very hard that day to get it all done before supper.

Nice hard hat — Jared secures the NAS on its cart

We parked them in the Aux.

Earlier in the day, Laird and I accompanied the ASM down to the Clean room.

I wanted a nap in the sun too — Baby Vizzy flopped out in the sun after being terrified out of his wits from the loud diesel Isuzu that brought the ASM down to the clean room

We had a final dinner, then packed up to leave.

Our last dinner -- stuffed zucchinis — Our last dinner — stuffed zucchinis and

Song of the day: Zumba version

Song of the day: Electric Slide version

2014A…28 Days Later: No Led in Our Zeppelin

Today Laird got up at 8am while Jared and I went to bed after our Last Star last night. Laird and the crew took down the ASM, then Laird and Jared de-cabled the NAS and I de-cabled Clio with their help. Here are some pictures:

Shiny — Jared peering through the optics

Its so loud it shakes your organs — Turning off the Clio pump in the scary loud pump room

That's me in my ND sweatshirt — The tunnel by the scary loud pump room.

Why did it have to be snakes? — Jared feeds the anaconda through to Laird, who catches it in the snake pit below

I hate snakes! — Laird in the snake pit. Left: the view from beneath the NAS. Right: The view through the hole from on the NAS platform.

All uncabled! — Jared and Laird posing by the NAS

Laird wishes he could show you how he really feels — Jared shows us how he really feels

Actuating? — Povilas works on the M1 mirror.

Also it wasn't our breakfast any more! — Tonight’s dinner was delicious – stuffed tomatoes, sliced potatoes, and salmon with a cream/shrimp sauce

Grumpy, Mizz Vizz, and Baby Vizzy — It was a rare 3-vizcacha day at the clean room today.

The song of the day is inspired by the film 28 Days Later. We hope when we get back to Tucson, it isn’t a post-apocalyptic wasteland with everyone crazy party-rocking and/or our loved ones turned into zombies. Still, should the need arise, we are ready to party rock.

2014A Day 27: Last Star

We have observed our last target star of the 2014A run. It was another great night, with half arcsecond seeing almost the whole way.

no clouds — Just after sunset from the catwalk.

We now have 2 days of packing and storing and inventory to do, and then we start the long journey home. Laird and Katie got started as soon as the dome closed.

lowering vacuum — Laird and Katie (behind him holding the light) started the Clio warm up this morning.

We have to spend some time saying goodbye to all of our friends. We won’t see them for 6 months!

almost tame — A vizzy hanging out waiting for sunset

And we need to spend some time actually looking at the night sky, it’s so beautiful here.

not airplanes — Yuri Beletsky has once again supplied us with an amazing photo. He took this two nights ago while we were observing.

We spent a lot of time on this run trying to mitigate the effects of diffraction. So check out the wave nature of these guitar strings:

2014A Day 26: Factor of a Million

Only one more night to go — I think we’re going to make it! Tonight was fun in a crazy busy kind of way. We did about 20 targets total, most of them were faint Clio targets. Vanessa had left at the end of the previous night, so this kind of a night kept me really busy and missing her. Here is a picture of Jared and Vanessa and me at the end of last night right before Vanessa left to go back to Tucson:

Brookings High School, South Dakota, 2/3 — Me, Jared, and Vanessa on Vanessa’s last night

Tonight we bagged about 20 targets and spanned a factor of a million in guide star brightness. And that’s without any optics changes — we just bin the pixels on the CCD and adjust the gain, and we can lock on zero-th to 16th magnitude guide stars!!

Here we are locked on one of the brightest stars we can do: