Good and bad news for SCExAO

No post in January... what's going on with the project? Let's start with some good news: in December, the SCExAO project was reviewed by a Subaru Telescope committee. Late January, the review report was sent to the Director who recommended to give SCExAO at least one night in the semester S10A, likely in May or June, before the telescope summer shutdown for re-coating of the primary mirror... yes!

The bad news is that only two days after this decision was announced, Subaru's AO system experienced a major problem, which permanently damaged the deformable mirror, making it unusable. The AO group at Subaru is working hard on trying to bring the AO back to life, however the replacement mirror won't be delivered before the end of October, which means that SCExAO is unlikely to go to the telescope before 2011.

While this is clearly a disappointment, we just have to make good use of this time. We have plenty of things to do: integrate and test the new frame for SCExAO and HiCIAO, which should be delivered toward the end of February (this month) is a major item on the list, write and polish the existing software for the control of SCExAO is another.

A hui hou!