Comm2 Day 11: Rookie Post #2

This is my second post ever. I guess that makes me no longer a rookie…

Tonight went pretty smoothly. Most of the night was spent doing science observations of faint companions. Because we have two science cameras, we were able to obtain some pretty cool images on both cameras–simultaneously!

The AO continued to perform very well, aside from a few hiccups, some of which may be Clio’s fault. (But since Laird/VisAO are always blaming Clio, I’m gonna blame VisAO this time.)

Speaking of Clio, Vanessa and I have continued to make progress in automating the control software so that *YOU* can one day operate Clio by yourself. This is a long and slow process, but things are improving.

Here are some action shots from the night:

The crew hard at work
The crew hard at work

I spent most of the night here:

my work station for the night
my work station for the night

What was I doing? Reading about TCL (pronounced “tickle”). This is because Clio’s software is written in this bizarre-but-very-popular-in-the-90s language. This is not fun reading, although Alfio, curious mad scientist that he is, has already started to read the textbook *for fun*.

A few quotes from the night:

“Why is there no light?? Ah! Because we are in the dark!” – Alfio

“Stop playing” – Alfio (sinisterly)

“My God, it’s full of stars!” – Me (mandatory sci-fi reference when doing Astronomy)

Laird: “Hey Clio”….Vanessa: “Yes?” (first time PI has addressed another human being by the name of instrument they work on…and the person has responded)

Goodnight/morning everyone.