APO 3.5-M Users Committee Phonecon, 09/15/08 Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Michael Strauss, John Bally, Mark Klaene, Bill Ketzeback Absent: Jon Holtzman, Russet McMillan, Bruce Gillespie, Al Harper, Jon Fulbright, Remy Indebetouw, Rene Walterbos, Scott Anderson Minutes taken by Bill Ketzeback ********************************** User feedback, comments from institutional representatives: Princeton (Strauss) - nothing to report UW (Hawley) - users are happy with the new TripleSpec data reduction package which incorporates OH skylines for wavelength calibration. There is a lot of interest in getting Agile working with TUI to allow easier observing. Several UW people are interested in MARVELS follow-up of planet candidates, especially for transit observations - ARC users who want to collaborate on followup, as for the SDSS-II supernova survey, should contact Andy Becker and Eric Agol at UW. Florida (Jian Ge) is interested in bringing a high resolution IR spectrograph and/or an optical clone (single fiber) of the MARVELS ET instrument to the 3.5m. Either of these could be used for precision redial velocity followup. Colorado (Bally) - A Colorado user reported problems with TripleSpec during the July shared-risk run and was unhappy with the state of the Observing Specialist training and documentation at that time. Another issue is the use of the telescope during marginal weather conditions, and getting feedback from the Observing Specialist as sky conditions are changing. Also, suggested reviewing procedures for instrument and shift changes on weekends. Concern that observing programs were unfairly impacted by scheduling of APOLLO. ************************************* Discussion of telescope/instruments report - Klaene The report is given below. Mark provided more information on the following issues. The tertiary mirror installation debugging is continuing with work on problems associated with the axial position and rotation. Another tropical storm system just hit, bring the total to four over the summer. The extra rain has reduced the drought but increased the growth of smaller plants in the forest, which act as fuel sources when they dry out. So the long term affect of all this moisture may not have lessened the fire danger as much as might be thought. Prediction for winter is light snow pack and warmer temperatures. The DIS red camera has been giving us problems with ion pumps and cryotiger. We may need to service DIS again soon. GFP is warm and will stay that way until November. *********************************************************************** Agile plans for fall 2008 - Klaene Agile is planned to move to the TR2 port. All parts are on hand, but we are waiting for the control software to be completed and tested on the bench. We hope to install it during October engineering time. Russell Owen is integrating Agile with new ICC and into Hub/TUI, which hopefully will also be ready by October. ********************************************************************** Triplespec scheduling for Q4 - Hawley Triplespec has one more block-scheduled run, with UVa support available, in October. After that it will be in normal usage on a half-night basis like the other instruments, and without readily available UVa support. Users should expect additional time for Tspec instrument changes; these are reflected in the Q4 schedule which gives 18 minutes between programs rather than the normal 12. The non-Tspec user is charged 6 minutes of the instrument change time, as usual, and the Tspec user is charged 12 minutes. We are working on shortening the instrument change time, but due to the length and weight of the instrument it will likely always take a few minutes longer. ********************************************************************** Update on ARCSAT (formerly known as PT) - Klaene, Hawley The 0.5m telescope formerly known as the Photometric Telescope (it was used for SDSS and SDSS-II photometry calibration) was formally turned over to ARC after SDSS II completed operations in July. It is now known as the ARC Small Aperture Telescope (ARCSAT). A proposal to support ARCSAT with minimal site operations budget impact (electricity, internet) and on a low-priority non-interference basis by existing site staff has been prepared by Mark, Bruce and Suzanne and will be presented to the ARC BoG in November. Funding for telescope and instrument improvements, observing, etc. must come from people who want to use the telescope. Steph Snedden has been appointed ARCSAT Director and she will be issuing calls for science proposals and scheduling use of the telescope, pursuant to cash and in-kind contributions. Interested users from the ARC community should contact Steph and/or Mark and Suzanne. *********************************** Actions from earlier meetings - group Science highlights: Please send to Bruce and Suzanne ASAP for the BoG report ACTION ITEMS: [open from previous months]: none [new actions from last month]: ACTION: Committee members should send one or two science highlights from the telescope users from their institution to Suzanne (slh/astro.washington.edu) and Bruce (Gillespie/apo.nmsu.edu) not later than 1 October for use in the Annual Report to the ARC Board of Governors meeting in November. ************************* 3.5-m Telescope, Instruments, and CIF Projects Highlights 8/1/08 through 9/5/08 Mark Klaene 0) Overview The summer shutdown was completed one night behind schedule, in part due to numerous small problems coming out of shutdown, compounded by uncooperative weather. One half night of DD time was given to engineering. All shutdown tasks and related projects were completed, but most of the characterization of the new tertiary mount will be postponed until the engineering time in September. The continuing summer rains hindered post-shutdown observing for much of this period. During this summer, we saw three tropical storms affect New Mexico's weather. We have issued a contract for a new heating boiler for Dorm B, and repair of the fire alarm system, which was damaged by lightning. 1) Telescope The Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary mirrors were washed. We installed new tertiary mounts and actuators for piston and tip/tilt. This new design eliminates a high-rate failure item, the flex pivots. It also i ncludes more and better mirror safeties, stiffer support, and a more robust control system. 2) Instruments DIS and SPIcam were vacuum-pumped and a new ion pump installed on DIS Red camera. The Echelle, TripleSpec, and NIC-FPS instruments remained cold and powered-on during the shutdown. When time becomes available to refine the control logic, Agile will be moved to the TR2 port (hopefully in October). GFP is currently warm (no planned near-term use), and APOLLO saw a servicing trip by the PI team and remains operational. 3) CIF projects The tertiary support/actuator upgrade is installed and operating, with additional characterization planned. We have been able to lower the tertiary rotation limit from above 80 degrees to above 35 degrees altitude. The problem below 35 degrees is with the rotation axis mechanicals; we have a potential fix for that that needs implementation and testing. Being able to rotate the tertiary to different ports over a wide range of telescope altitudes will help improve observing efficiency. *********************************** Next meeting: The next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday, 6 October, at 8:30 AM Pacific Time. The agenda and other materials will be sent to the committee members during the preceding week. 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