Report 3.5-m User Committee Meeting 12/09/96. Present: Turner, Gillespie, Lutz, Stubbs, Walterbos, Uomoto Absent: Hobbs, Strauss Report prepared by R. Walterbos Topics: 1. ARC instrumentation and science meeting to be held at the new Visitor Center at APO, some time this fall. Walterbos will organize this. The meeting in Baltimore last August worked quite well in implementing a 3-yr improvement plan. The goal of the meeting in 1997 is to discuss instrumentation and performance issues, and also scientific research with the APO telescopes, to see how others are using the facilities, and possibly to initiate collaborative efforts amongst the members. 2. Update on current shutdown: - primary mirror is in Tucson. Will be realuminized on 12/11/96. The goal is to have all three mirrors realuminized during this shutdown. An immediate throughput measurement will be made after completion of the shutdown. - First of 3 replacement wheels for the dome arrived and is being installed. The goal is to replace all 3 wheels during this shutdown, but this may move the completion date back to beyond 12/21 since the wheels may not all arrive until the end of next week. - New braces are being installed on the 2ndary cage to tighten it up. - the guider is being worked on, to get it ready for installation of the new camera, which is scheduled for January. - placement of conical baffles in Nasmyth tube to reduce reflections - Check noise problem in blue DIS camera and replace some cables which should fix problem, although this is not likely to reduce overall readnoise. - Some basic maintenance on various instruments is also planned. 3. Results of Board Meeting: Board embraced idea of 3-yr plan and funded it at a level which will let us go forward, given limited human resources. 4. Initiation of 3-yr plan efforts. Need implementation plan for first year. Initial meeting on Fr Dec 13, 1996, on APO site to plan this. Board mixed funds together for new secondary and 3-yr plan, but did not micromanage spending of funds. This is left up to the Director and users of the telescope. 5. APO publications record. It is becoming useful and necessary to keep track of publications resulting from APO. User committee members will ask their institutional members to provide this information on a regular basis. Rene Walterbos will collate all institutional lists to keep this data base up-to-date. 6. Status of new secondary. Negotations are underway for finishing the new secondary. Various options were discussed. 7. WSMR arrangements. Discussed at Board meeting, and authorized by the board. The question is how to compensate observers who loose time due to WSMR activities. Board did not feel that users should receive make-up time for this, but treat it as "weather" instead. Individual institutions can arrange for makeup time if they desire. To provide make-up time by the Director would involve a complicated tracking system for limited number of occasions. However, lost time should not be counted against the institutions. Lutz proposed that we discuss this again with the users. 8. Date for next meeting: 01/06/97 APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 107 in the apo35-general archive. You can find APO the archive on http://www.astro.princeton.edu/APO/apo35-general/INDEX.html APO To join/leave the list, send mail to apo35-request@astro.princeton.edu APO To post a message, mail it to apo35-general@astro.princeton.edu APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO