APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 3/2/09 Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Scott Anderson, Mark Klaene, Russet McMillan, Bill Ketzeback, John Bally, Bruce Gillespie, Michael Strauss, Al Harper, Jon Holtzman, Rene Walterbos Absent: Remy Indebetouw, Jon Fulbright ********************************** User feedback, comments from institutional representatives: Princeton (Michael Strauss) - Michael gave thanks to the APO engineering staff for getting the telescope back together in time for Princeton users, who had a successful observing run. Colorado (John Bally) - John reported that a user has a concern about the ability for some programs to get adequate calibration time with the recent increase of partial half nights and short monitoring programs. Suzanne and Russet said that we have long been aware of the impact that short observing programs can sometimes have on adjoining half-night programs, and that we have tried to avoid conflicts and to arrange mitigations wherever possible. The recent increase in short programs is largely a result of the favorable apparition of Venus. Jon Holtzman said that it is almost always possible to get DIS calibrations done if you start earlier in the afternoon, and that it should be possible to develop a library of SPIcam sky and dome flats that would be suitable for most observing programs. John Bally and Al Harper said that proposers should be able to specify in their proposals any extraordinary calibration requirements, those that might need special scheduling considerations. Suzanne added that she often gives as recompense an extra half night to programs that are scheduled to share several half nights with short and/or monitoring programs. Russet suggested that when these programs are given extra time as compensation, this could be noted in the schedule. It is easier to juxtapose bright-time instrument programs with twilight programs and short interleavers than it is for dark-time programs. Bill Ketzeback seconded the idea that special calibration requirements be listed in the proposals so that we can mount instruments early and get dome calibrations. Also Bill pointed out that users should send requests for special calibrations with their setup requests at least two days ahead of their run. Russet felt that it would be useful to hear feedback from a larger number of users on the subject, and Al and Bruce suggested that we post a description of our telescope scheduling process so that the users have a better understanding of the policies and trade-offs. The group felt this would be a good idea. ==>ACTION: Suzanne and Russet will write a draft description of our scheduling process for eventual user dissemination. Johns Hopkins - no report. Washington (Scott Anderson) - Scott had nothing to report. Chicago (Al Harper) - Al had nothing new to report. New Mexico State (Jon Holtzman) - Jon had nothing to report. Virginia - no report. ********************************** Discussion of telescope/instruments report: To the more detailed report below, Mark added his thanks to all the users for bearing with us throughout the period for which we have endured the problems, diagnosis, and repair of the tertiary mirror mount and associated electronics. For the time being, the telescope is in good shape. With regard to instruments, the NIC-FPS new fan-out board should be installed sometime between April and fall, depending on the availability of CU resources. Progress is being made on the Agile instrument rotator, which is undergoing tests and modifications. There are Agile operating modes through TUI that have uncovered a timing flaw in the camera control software from the vendor. Agile users should be aware of this, and they should study the updates recently made to the on- line Agile user documentation, discussed in more detail in a later topic of this meeting below. Also, several of the shared site engineering staff will be stretched thin over the next few months working on high-priority SDSS-III projects. Engineering work related to the 3.5-m will continue on a level-of-effort basis. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& 3.5-m Telescope, Instruments, and CIF Projects Highlights, 1/29/09 through 2/27/09 Mark Klaene 0) Overview Good weather continues. A couple of winter storms passed through during the past month, leaving only a small amount of precipitation. Most recently, above-normal temperatures have made it feel like late spring. The principal telescope issue has been with pointing problems (around 3 arcminutes) that have been suspected to be related to the tertiary mirror mount. This was traced to an intermittent problem with one of the three mirror-position encoders, which has since been replaced. Both the 3.5-m and 2.5-m telescopes have been using this type of encoder for more than ten years and this is the first failure we have experienced. The instruments are all working relatively well. 1) Telescope The NA2 axis controller continues to perform well; its problems in earlier months may be behind us. We had a couple of instances where the TCC froze, and this was traced to some weather data that was incorrect. We now error-check this data before sending it to the TCC. Following the tertiary mirror encoder replacement, telescope pointing was substantially improved. However, we elected to continue with the planned controller upgrade and now have a 4th Galil controller that runs only the axial position of the tertiary. This design is patterned after the secondary design and is substantially more robust than the earlier tertiary configuration. The old Galil controller now runs the tertiary rotation, mirror covers, and eyelids. During the engineering efforts, we also pulled the tertiary glass and serviced all the actuators. We did find a few loose bolts which might have contributed to some of the positional non-repeatability we have seen in the new tertiary mount since September. Very little observing time was lost to the tertiary engineering work and reconfigurations. A new problem occurred with the altitude drive axis resulting in multiple errors. The spare altitude drive box was slated to be installed on 26 February, but when the motor was removed it was found that the problem was with a bearing failure in the motor. The motor was quickly replaced and no science time was lost. 2) Instruments DIS, SPIcam, and Echelle are fully operational. A minor adjustment to the DIS cart was made. NIC-FPS has been operational with no problems. The new fan-out board design is complete and plans are being made for its fabrication. The new board will be tested at UVa and CU, and then a plan for its installation will be established. We hope to integrate and test the new board during the summer, but CU commitments to HST/COS may delay the installation schedule. TripleSpec mounting is still less than perfect, but there have been no recent problems and the mounting operation remains tolerable. The UVa team is also looking at issues of detector array power loss and is monitoring the situation closely. We are also occasionally getting false temperature alarms for the Aux LN2 dewar. Agile is still available at NA2. Updates to the documentation have been made to keep users abreast on recent TUI and ICC developments. This includes changes in minimum exposure time, bias-image fluctuations on the first few images of an exposure sequence, and general control issues. Further improvements will be slow in coming due to resources being tied up on other projects. Rotator testing has been delayed in order to concentrate on the tertiary issues. APOLLO remains operational. 3) CIF projects The direct-drive critical design review will be held on 2 March 2009. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& ********************************** Agile usage in coming months: Suzanne reported that the vendor-supplied Agile camera software has timing problems. There is a workaround for both TUI and aacq, and for both slow and fast readouts--see the updated Agile on-line user documentation, or talk to the site staff about the details. Basically the camera is power-cycled between exposure sequences, but this causes some variability in the bias levels for the first several exposures of each sequence. Since we are having difficulties getting the attention of the camera vendor to effect a better solution, the situation is unlikely to change for some months. Agile users thus need to monitor their data closely, read the online documentation and talk with site staff when they use the instrument. In other Agile news, we now plan to delay the move of Agile to the TR2 port with its own rotator for a few months, both so that site staff can concentrate on the telescope drive axes and to allow additional calibration data to be obtained while Agile is mounted at NA2 with guider capability. The users community will be notified when we schedule the move to TR2. ********************************** Decadal survey "state of the profession" position paper: There is a "state of the profession" group within the decadal survey that is soliciting position papers on facilities and partnerships. We have been encouraged to submit a paper on the nature of our consortium and general APO operations. Since Suzanne is a member of one of the science panels, she cannot lead the position paper. Therefore, Jon Holtzman, with help from Rene Walterbos, has agreed to undertake putting this paper together, which will also be helpful for us as a foundation for our own future planning. Suzanne asked that if users committee members and other users want to be involved in assembling this paper, which is due March 15, that they should contact Jon Holtzman. ********************************** Instrument proposals/studies: Suzanne reminded the committee that Cynthia Froning (CU) is leading a study to upgrade our direct imaging capability (ie SPIcam) and Eric Burgh (CU) is leading a study on upgrading the echelle spectrograph--requests for input and comments from the users community are being solicited. Interested users should give discuss and give input to their users committee members. A new proposal for upgrades to the Goddard Fabry-Perot was recently submitted by Bruce Woodgate, which describes adding an IFU spectroscopic capability and upgraded imaging capabilities. The committee members are asked to read the proposal and distribute it to their users for comments and feedback. Al said that he thought the proposal looked very good, and wondered about its potential impact to the site operations. Mark replied that there would be work required for TUI integration. Suzanne added that we would like to hear from potential users on their interests in using the IFU spectroscopic capability, and what limiting magnitudes would be useful for their science goals. Anyone interested in further information or providing feedback on the proposed GFP upgrade should send e-mail to Mark Klaene (mark at apo.nmsu.edu) and Suzanne (slh at astro.washington.edu). ********************************** Other items: Suzanne offered her appreciation to the APO staff who worked long and hard to fix the tertiary problems over the past months, frequently under grueling winter conditions. ********************************** ACTION ITEMS: [open from previous months]: none [new actions from this meeting]: ==>ACTION: Suzanne and Russet to write a draft description of our scheduling process for eventual user dissemination. ********************************** Next meeting: The next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday, 13 April, 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 1126 in the apo35-general archive. 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