APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 5/05/08 Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Bruce Gillespie, Scott Anderson, John Bally, Mark Klaene, Jon Holtzman, Michael Strauss, Russet McMillan, and Remy Indebetouw Absent: Al Harper, Jon Fulbright Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie ********************************** User feedback, comments from institutional representatives: Princeton (Strauss) - Michael said the PU users were happy. UVa (Indebetouw) - Remy said that there was "no unhappiness" among UVa users. UW (Anderson) - Scott mentioned that two UW users have recently had trouble starting TUI on Red Hat (4) platforms. The apparent workaround is to log off and then log back on. Russell Owen is looking into the problem. CU (Bally) - John said he had heard nothing back from the CU users. JHU (Fulbright) - no report. NMSU (Holtzman) - Jon had nothing new to report on user feedback or issues. UChicago (Harper) - no report. ********************************** Discussion of telescope/instruments report - Klaene: The report is given below. Mark provided updates on the forest closure and other items. There have been two fires burning both east and north of APO, although they are not likely to threaten the observatory. Recent high winds continue to degrade utility electrical power, and the backup generator, although usable, needs servicing sometime in the next couple of months. The telescope has been generally well-behaved, with some minor problems addressed in the report. Although the autofocus script is being tested, other work priorities will delay its initial release to users for a few months. We have recently adopted a modified dust policy: the Observing Specialists will open the telescope under borderline high dust conditions, and then assess the dust levels inside the open enclosure (with the pressurization fans running to help keep the air clean near the telescope) and use the in-enclosure dust readings to determine whether to stay open or not. This has enabled us to recently keep the telescope open under conditions that we would have normally not opened the telescope in the past, based solely on outside dust levels. The replacement of the fan-out board for NIC-FPS is nearly completed; all indications are positive so far. The final instrument cool-down was delayed because the ion pump appeared to be broken, and it was replaced with a spare. Once NIC-FPS is cooled down, tests of the noise performance of the detector will be made, possibly in the next day or two. The N-F Fabry-Perot etalon was removed, and will be returned to CU for cryo-testing. If the etalon is still inoperative in the lab, it will be returned to the vendor for repairs. Parts needed for moving Agile to a permanent port (with a rotator) were received and are being assembled. We should be ready to move Agile in a couple of months. Related to the recent problem with dust, Bruce mentioned that Mike Skrutskie had asked if we have any data on the K-band emissivity of the telescope (we don't). Now that we have two low-noise NIR instruments, telescope emissivity related to temperature and cleanliness of the optics is especially worthy of our attention. Mike suggested that we might be able to baseline and monitor telescope emissivity using NIC-FPS and/or TripleSpec. Everyone agreed that this is a good idea that someone (who?) should pursue. ************************* 3.5-m Telescope, Instruments, and CIF Projects Highlights, 3/24/08 through 4/29/08 Mark Klaene & Bruce Gillespie 0) Overview Operations continued to be largely routine through the period. The spring weather (with its seasonal high winds and elevated dust levels) has affected observing--we lost approximately 4.5 nights due the high winds and dust levels during this period. The fire danger level in the surrounding forest is now extremely high, and although the forest is going to be "closed" effective May 1 by the USFS, no impact to normal operations is expected. On site-related matters, recent water usage at the site has been unusually high, and two underground water leaks were subsequently located and repaired. However, there appears to be a third leak somewhere that requires further investigation. Site electric power has been relatively unstable, due in part to the high winds that have caused grid fluctuations and outages. Although operational, our emergency backup generator has a fuel leak for which we are trying to locate a part. 1) Telescope Tertiary rotation has become problematic again. The engineering staff is working hard to diagnose the problem, but progress is slow because the symptoms do not appear during daytime testing. Slippage of the main azimuth drive system was noticed during tracking early last week, and the problem was fixed with a slight preload adjustment and the servicing of the lower azimuth bearing. We started telescope and enclosure preventive maintenance, those annual items that can be done without a shutdown. An autofocus script is now available for initial testing by the Observing Specialists. The script uses the NA2 guider focus to adjust the secondary, and has had some limited testing to date. 2) Instruments DIS, SPIcam, and the Echelle operated smoothly throughout the period. Echelle experienced a minor warm-up that was traced to a loose power connection. Shortly afterwards, the Echelle ion pump controller failed. We believe this was the source of the burnt odor noticed two months ago. A new ion pump controller was installed, and no further warm-up problems have been seen. The new fan-out board replacement for NIC-FPS and the etalon removal work has started. With the arrival of TripleSpec, CorMASS has been decommissioned and crated for shipment back to UVa in the upcoming weeks. The visiting instruments (GFP and APOLLO) were both operational. TripleSpec commissioning began and the new instrument is well on the way to being available for scheduled science. Some TripleSpec first-light information is available--contact John Wilson at UVa if you are interested. We are also planning to place preliminary TripleSpec user documentation on the web soon. 3) CIF projects We are making good progress on the implementation of Agile field rotation and its migration to the TR2 mirror cell port. Most of the new parts have been received and initial assembly is underway, to be followed by bench testing. The tertiary support/actuator upgrade is progressing; long-lead items have been purchased, and machining has started. Design is slightly behind schedule but still on track for an August installation. The rotator drive upgrade has been in routine operational use for some time now, and indications are that its performance requirements appear to have been met. Ongoing cleanup of rotator controller software will continue over the coming months, which will enable the migration of the new axis controller system to the telescope altitude drive. 4) Summer Shutdowns There will be three shutdown periods this summer. Two 3-day shutdowns, one in June and one in July, will be for secondary and axis drive work. In August, we are planning a 17-day shutdown for the tertiary support upgrade, as well as for M1 washing and several additional maintenance tasks (e.g., annual instrument servicing). ********************************** Q3 Summer shutown dates - Hawley: Suzanne said that that the major summer shutdown will occur 6 - 22 August (inclusive), and a mini-shutdown will be scheduled for 14 - 16 July. ********************************** TripleSpec update - Indebetouw, Hawley: Remy said that UVa is pleased with the progress in commissioning TripleSpec. The online user documentation should be posted this week, and the data reduction software is very near completed and ready for users. Suzanne added that TripleSpec had two engineering runs during March and April, and that the TUI control functions appear to be in place. The instrument will be offered to the general user community this summer in a shared-risk, block-scheduled manner. The blocks will be scheduled in 4 or 5 contiguous nights, so that UVa staff can be on call to field questions. Data taken during the coming quarter will be user-proprietary. Russet added that since we are block-scheduling TripleSpec to enable UVa support, it will not be available as a fill- in or back-up instrument outside of the scheduled blocks. If users wish to write a TripleSpec proposal for the coming quarter, Suzanne said that there is a link on the APO instrument information webpage to the UVa documentation, and people should contact John Wilson (jcw6z at virginia.edu) if there are questions not covered in the documentation. In addition, TripleSpec data already taken during the engineering runs will continue to be available for prospective users to look at; contact Suzanne or Bruce for the URL. Suzanne asked that the User Committee members should make sure that their users are aware that TripleSpec is being made available in the coming quarter. ********************************** NIC-FPS update - Bally: In addition to news about NIC-FPS that is covered in the reports above, Stephane Beland and Mike Kaiser (from CU, CASA) have been at APO installing the new fan-out board and removing the F-P etalon. In the next day or two, full-up tests of the detector will be possible to see if the new wiring improves the detector noise characteristics. ********************************** ACTION ITEMS: [open from previous months]: ACTION: John Bally will write a section with figures on Fowler sampling for inclusion in the NIC-FPS user documentation. STATUS: Closed. John recently reviewed the section and made editorial comments, which were implemented by Gabrelle Saurage. In general, Suzanne asked that we remind all users that we depend on their feedback for improving the 3.5-m telescope, instrumentation, and software user documentation on an ongoing basis. [new actions from this month]: none ********************************** Future of the Photometric Telescope - Hawley, Gillespie: Although not on the agenda, Suzanne and Bruce reported on an item discussed at the recent ARC Board of Governors telecon. The Board agreed with the plan to assume operational responsibility of the PT after SDSS-II ends on 14 July. Proposals for post-SDSS programs for the PT have been received and are being evaluated. At the November annual Board meeting, we will make a recommendation on which future program(s) to conduct on the PT, with a plan for managing and funding said program(s). ********************************** Next meeting: The next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday, 9 Jun, at 8:30 AM Pacific Time. The agenda and other materials will be sent to the committee members during the preceding week. APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 1102 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