APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 1/12/09 Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Scott Anderson, Mark Klaene, Bill Ketzeback, Russet McMillan, John Bally, Remy Indebetouw, Bruce Gillespie, and Michael Strauss Absent: Al Harper, Jon Holtzman, and Jon Fulbright ********************************** User feedback, comments from institutional representatives: Princeton (Michael Strauss) - Michael said things were fine, with no problems. Colorado (John Bally) - John reported that users had recent problems with pointing and slit-angle problems using TripleSpec. Mark replied that the site staff were working on the problems with telescope pointing and the rotator. John advised that TripleSpec users should come prepared with wide-field pointing charts until the pointing and rotator problems are resolved. Johns Hopkins (Jon Fulbright) - no report. Washington (Scott Anderson) - Scott has nothing to report. Suzanne added a general thank-you to Min-Su Shin (Princeton) for graciously accommodating a telescope time change last month. Chicago (Al Harper) - no report. New Mexico State (Jon Holtzman) - no report. Virginia (Remy Indebetouw) - Remy said his users were mostly happy. One user asked why we delete old data, given the low cost of disk storage these days. Suzanne said that it has long been our policy that APO is not a data archive because we cannot afford the time and effort. She reminded everyone that the current policy is that data are maintained on newton for between 9-12 months (they are deleted at the beginning of the same quarter of the following year, e.g. Q1 2008 data were deleted on Jan 1, 2009). Because of the large number of images obtained with the recommended Fowler Sampling on NIC-FPS, the raw NIC-FPS frames are kept only for three months. The processed NIC-FPS images are kept for the normal 9-12 months. ********************************** Discussion of telescope/instruments report - Klaene: Mark summarized the report, spotlighting the recent issues with the tertiary axial actuators. Also, a problem with the instrument rotator was worked on and appears to be resolved. The DIS-blue ion pump was replaced for a second time; this time it seems to be working well. Also, the DIS slit-viewer shutter was replaced twice, and is now working reliably. The other instruments are performing nominally, and although mounting TripleSpec is somewhat improved, it is still more difficult than the other instruments. The new rotator for Agile is mounted at the TR2 port and being tested. We plan to move the instrument in February. The CDR for the telescope axes direct-drive system will be in early March, and installation is planned for the summer shutdown. ************************* 3.5-m Telescope, Instruments, and CIF Projects Highlights, 12/2/08 through 1/07/09 Mark Klaene 0) Overview Winter has started to set in with a number of snowfalls and mostly subfreezing temperatures. Telescope problems were generally associated with the tertiary, however these were much reduced from previous months. The holiday came and went with minimal disruptions to the staff's holiday leave schedule. Site infrastructure held its own throughout the holiday break. The observatory now has a video conferencing system on site. 1) Telescope NA2 axis controller has been performing very well. Tertiary rotation: rotation is working well, we had one instance of the axial actuator encoders failing. The problem went away on its own, which is not something we wanted to see happen. We are seeing some pointing errors that seem to be related to tertiary rotation but our telemetry (which is quite extensive) does not indicate a problem. This is still being pursued. 2) Instruments The DIS-blue ion pump was replaced again and is now working well. The DIS slitviewer shutter went through two replacements and we are waiting for further testing to verify the second one is working. DIS and SPIcam are both fully operational. Echelle and NIC-FPS both continue to be operational with no problems. We are still waiting for UVa to design and build up a new NIC-FPS fan- out board that will hopefully address the residual readout noise. TripleSpec mounting is still occasionally giving us some problems, but recent modifications and more training seem to have improved the situation. Agile is still available at NA2; it will be moved to the TR2 port once the new rotator is fully tested. The rotator has been installed and is ready for testing. TUI integration for Agile continues. Some software integration issues are being worked. APOLLO remains operational. The high-precision gravimeter is now slated for arrival in January, and preparations are in progress for its installation at the 3.5-m. 3) CIF projects A date of March 2nd as been set for the direct-drive CDR. ********************************** Update on Agile rotator and TUI integration - Klaene, Hawley The TUI integration of Agile is proceeding well, and some on-sky testing has been accomplished. There are uncertainties about the accuracy of the timing, which will soon be tested, but in the meantime the TUI interface is working well enough for user test-drives if high accuracy timing is not required. As previously discussed at an earlier meeting, there is no guider planned for the new mount position for Agile because of space limitations and there being no compelling science reason to guide its short exposures. However, it has been suggested that guiding may be desirable to get the highest photometric precision by keeping the field registered to the same pixels. It is possible to use the science data itself to guide the telescope if necessary for precision flat-fielding, but this capability is not currently planned for implementation. Suzanne asked that committee members make sure that their Agile users know that there will be no guiding of Agile exposures starting in mid-February, and if there are users that feel guiding is needed, they should bring the issue to Suzanne and Mark. ********************************** Update on Triplespec scheduling during Q1 2009 - Hawley Suzanne reported that TripleSpec is partially block-scheduled in Q1, and off-block usage in December and Q1 will help us determine how feasible it is to allow its general scheduling. The mounting procedure for the instrument is still difficult, but improvements have been made and more are in the works. Users can ask to use TripleSpec in off-block-scheduled times, but they need to be aware that the instrument mounting is more time-consuming than for the other instruments, and to be prepared to be patient. ********************************** Instrument studies - Hawley We have received expressions of interest for several new or upgraded instruments. Cynthia Froning (Colorado) is looking at wide-field visible imaging capabilities, Eric Burgh (Colorado) is looking at upgrades for the echelle, and Jian Ge (Florida) is proposing an NIR dispersed interferometer for RV studies and a high resolution NIR spectrograph. If any other users are interested in these or other instrumentation projects, they should contact the aforementioned or Suzanne and Mark. ********************************** New items Bill Ketzeback said that we need to reevaluate the existing user information for NIC-FPS, some of which may be different since it was first posted because the read electronics for the detector have been changed from 2-channel to 16-channel reads. This may have affected the linearity and read noise. John Bally said that these values should be updated, but he will wait until the new fan-out board is installed. Mark added that the NIC-FPS sub-frame readout times and other related details also need to be updated. ********************************** ACTION ITEMS: [open from previous months]: none [new actions from last meeting]: ACTION: Focus offsets for the various NIC-FPS filter need to be determined, documented for the users, and automated corrections implemented in the operations software. STATUS: John Bally said they have received engineering data from APO, and the filters are definitely not parfocal and there are significant offsets in their focal distances. Data in better seeing, or an alternative method (e.g., Hartmann or phase-retrieval tests) would be helpful in order to better quantify the focus shifts between filters. The measured focus shifts need to be added to the user information for NIC-FPS, and users are warned to focus each filter separately. The focus shifts are in the 25 to 75 micron range. It is possible that the ICC software could automatically make the focus correction, but this would require significant effort to implement. ACTION: Anybody with an interest in leading and/or supporting new/ upgraded instruments for the telescope should make their intentions known to Suzanne Hawley by next month's Users Committee meeting. STATUS: Closed, see discussion this meeting. ********************************** Next meeting: The next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday, 2 February, 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 1124 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