APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 4/5/10 Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Bill Ketzeback, John Bally Ed Turner, Jon Holtzman Absent: Al Harper, Remy Indebetouw, Jon Fulbright, Scott Anderson, Mark Klaene ********************************** o User feedback, comments from institutional representatives: New Mexico State (Jon Holtzman) - nothing to report Colorado (John Bally) - nothing to report Princeton (Ed Turner) - subscription rates are increasing at Princeton, largely due to popularity of Triplespec Washington (Suzanne Hawley) - users are happy that Agile on chip guiding is now in commisioning. Also some DIS linearity testing and NICFPS bright object observations are under discussion with APO staff. Users appreciate the help and feedback with these tests. o Discussion of telescope/instruments report - Klaene/Ketzeback Bill Ketzeback presented the report in Mark Klaene's absence. With regard to the CIF project to obtain new calibration lamps that give better response in the blue, Bill said that the possible lamps being considered take a long time to warm up and may not be suitable for normal nightly calibrations. Jon Holtzman suggested that if the instruments are stable, a set of cal lamps could be taken once a week during cloudy weather or during the day (e.g. for DIS blue) and made available to users. ------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.5-m Telescope, Instruments, and CIF Projects Highlights, 3/4/10 through 4/1/10 0) Overview Spring is at the door step. We are seeing warming temperatures, elevated dust levels, and high winds frequently. Significant snow melt has occurred. We have implemented our spring time dust level policy that we started 2 years ago which gives the obs specs more flexibility in determining when to open or stay open when the background levels are high. This allows us to stay open while still protecting against significant dust events. The CU class trip was quite successful. Thanks to Erica Ellingson for such an orderly and well managed group. 1) Telescope Behavior is still quite good with only rare minor issues with pointing and tracking. 2) Instruments DIS, TSpec, NICFPS, Echelle and Agile ran with no problems. SPICam is down due to a failed cryotiger compressor. The spare compressor from SDSS also failed. A new compressor has been ordered and the lines are being flushed and purged while waiting for the replacement compressor. We hope to have the instrument back up before May. The new NICFPS fanout board testing is progressing at CU however cable noise and problems with the spare Leach controller have seriously slowed progress. There was still no progress reported on the NICFPS etalon at CU. 3) CIF projects Agile on-chip guiding was implemented and appears to be quite successful based on preliminary results. The spare drive box machining and fabrication continues with some parts assembled. Obtaining new cal lamps (to obtain increased flux in the blue) is proving to be troublesome. The lamps we would like to use take too long to warm up and stabilize and some of the other commercial projector lamps have poor wavelength throughput. ------------------ o RITMOS feedback - Hawley NMSU - One user had some interest but science would be challenging at best with this instrument CU - Lukewarm response from Colorado users UW - Not much interest in RITMOS in its current configuration (blue wavelength region, low resolution, and small FOV) APO - Concerned about supporting another GFP/Cormass type visiting instrument. Would this lead to development in a multiobject spectrograph better matched to the 3.5m? Ketzeback will try to followup with Instrument team and send them more info they are requesting. o Imaging camera discussion - Hawley The recent failure of SPIcam's cryotiger has again raised the question of the need for a SPIcam replacement. The camera was originally a prototype that was not well matched to our telescope and is aging. Last year's study effort resulted in the realization that we will not have a large FOV capability (no more than 6 or 7 arcmin) so perhaps we should reinvestigate the idea of a simultaneous multicolor imager. Could consider another imaging camera study to explore this option in more detail. Jon Holtzman raised the issue that this may be an expensive project (> $0.5 million) so we need strong science driver(s) in order to pursue external funding. If we can't identify those then another technical study may not be worthwhile. o ACTION ITEMS FROM PREVIOUS MEETINGS: Users committee members should ask their users if RITMOS is of interest to them (please share SPIE paper). [Closed] o No new action items from this meeting. -------------- Next meeting: The next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday, 3 May, 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 1177 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