2014B Day 2: Clio is Alive – Extreme Wavefront Control Lab

There was a cold wind blowing today but in the hottest/sunniest parts of the day it calmed down. During this time we moved the ASM from the clean room up to the Clay dome:

I remember the days when this operation brought out the whole mountain to see — Here the Isuzu is moving the ASM up the hill from the Clean Room to the Clay telescope

Juan and Laird wanted this pic — This is the new way to connect the Come-Along Strap for moving the ASM on/off the truck via the lift gate at the Cerro Manqui summit where the Clay telescope is

It’s beautiful up here. Breakfast was amazing: fresh-squeezed orange juice, oatmeal with warm milk, dos huevos fritos por favor, and unsweetened whole-milk yogurt — yum! I hiked up and down the mountain 5 or 6 times and it’s really helping with my jet lag to be out and about in the sunshine.

I connected Clio and got it up and running. Victor helped me cool it down as we were doing this. First Laird and I put the new washers Manny made in to help support the gold electronics box as the Delrin was starting to crack/warp.

Oh Clee Oh — Laird and I are putting in the washers to help hold up the Clio electronics box

Here are the washers from Manny that Laird and I put in the Delrin plate

I did a couple fills too — Victor is cooling down Clio with liquid nitrogen

First time I did it by myself — Clio’s Alive!

Clee oh take images complete — Also Clio can read out the chip!

Meanwhile, Jared did the same thing with VisAO — plugged everything in, moved the motors, took test images. Later Laird cleaned the optics and Jared tested characterized the images:

V to the I to the Z squared Y — Here Jared is hacking away on his spiffy DJ setup

Here he looks like a real doctor — Laird is cleaning the telecentric lens. He is dusting it with a Q-tip

Do we look like real doctors? — Laird is teaching me how to put the Wollaston prism in and out of the beam

And we saw all sorts of wildlife today! Donkeys, a guanaco, a snake (little garter snake), and a vizcacha bounding up the stairs! Here are the ones we were able to get pictures of:

It's like a vision test that will show the real MagAO aficionados — This is a guanaco (kinda like a llama) that I saw down in the saddle while we were moving the ASM. Sorry for the terrible picture from my anti-zoom camera phone.

So those were the fauna, now for the flora. It’s spring here and the desert flowers are coming up – beautiful!

Enjoy! — Jared took these flower pictures for the various mothers … and any other MagAO fans who like pretty things.

This song makes me think of home, more MN/WI than NM b/c of the farm refs. For the Moms, the Dads, the Grandmothers, and the Grandfathers, we miss you. <3 Agnes