Tag: 2025B

This is now my fourth(!) observing run, and they’ve all had a unique flavor to them—but if there’s one thing I can count on, it’s sleeping like a brick the first night at LCO after 30+ hours of travel. This morning the three of us were feeling sufficiently back-from-the-dead, and we hit the ground running on getting MagAO-X ready to be on-sky this Thursday. We started out with some plumbing, removing the pink goo that builds up in our glycol filter and giving it some brand-new o-rings to prevent leaks. Once we confirmed cooling was up and running, Parker took some time to work on his accelerometers while Jared and I brought stagebs back to life:

After lunch I took some time to hide in my room, stare at plots of Xs and Os, and question the stability of both my control systems and possibly my own mental state (the timing of this midterm was kind of inconvenient). At about the same time, two wild postdocs appeared, one of which had gotten much more sleep than the other. The more well-rested postdoc and I took a walk up the mountain and we introduced him to the cleanroom, the library, and most importantly, the espresso machine.

The rest of the afternoon was spent aligning Miles’ polarization generator so that we could capture nice flat fields on both the camscis. Not too bad for having only been at LCO for a few hours.

We haven’t yet been graced by the presence of cleanroom vizzys, but Carlos el culpeo was feeling mischievous and photogenic tonight, and we are all the better for it.

Random fun fact of the day: did you know that one of the world’s largest viruses, Megavirus chilensis, was discovered in water samples from the coast of Chile in 2010 and is larger than many bacteria? 

Song of the Day:

It’s that time of the year! The start of another MagAO-X observing run. For Jared, Katie, and myself that meant 3AM alarms for Thursday morning. Shortly after arriving at the airport, a wise man said, “a little airport milk never hurt anyone”. 30 grams of protein later, I was energized and ready for any wild adventure Delta had in store for us…

Turns out, Delta was nothing but good to us. Sure we had a 9 hour layover in Atlanta, but if you know an extremely loyal and important Delta customer, there is a chance you are lucky enough to enter the prestigious Delta Sky Club. Thanks to Jared, we were able to work in a comfortable spot and have a productive 8 hour layover with an all you can eat buffet.

After smooth flights to Santiago then La Serena, we went directly from the airport to LCO just in time to catch dinner.

After dinner, Katie and I made our way to the gym to get our bodies moving again after a long 36 hours of travel.

I know some of you may be thinking, that bench doesn’t look the nicest or the safest for that matter. Well, good thing the kids aren’t picky, but rumor has it LCO is building a workout complex with an indoor basketball court, mini soccer field, and full gym!

No Vizzy content just yet, but a couple of beautiful Burros greeted us upon arrival.

Wishing safe travels for the rest of the MagAO-X team coming throughout the next week! Also, since I am writing the first blog post of the run, I have the honor and privilege of choosing our blog rule. For each blog post, the writer must include at least one random fun fact. My fun fact is that the Chilean Patagonia region is home to the densest population of Pumas anywhere in the world.

Song of the Day