APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 11/07/11 Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Rich Kron (for Al Harper), Remy Indebetouw, John Bally, Michael Strauss, Scott Anderson, Sean Moran, and Bruce Gillespie Absent: Mark Klaene, Bill Ketzeback, Jon Holtzman ********************************** User feedback and comments from institutional representatives: o Washington (Scott Anderson) - Scott had nothing to report. o Colorado (John Bally) - John had nothing to report. o Johns Hopkins (Sean Moran) - Sean reported that one of his JHU users saw fringing in SPIcam data, and that there appears not to be any user information on our website about it. Suzanne said that SPIcam is susceptible to fringing especially in i and z, and that we usually let users deal with it using standard IRAF routines. Bill Ketzeback will update the documentation with information about what is to be expected from SPICam. We anticipate that GRIZLI will not have significant fringing, as its detectors are deep-depletion devices. o New Mexico State (Jon Holtzman) - No report. o Princeton (Michael Strauss) - Michael said that everything was going OK. Suzanne asked if the Princeton ToO program was getting good data, and Michael said yes. o Virginia (Remy Indebetouw) - Remy had nothing to report. o Chicago (Rich Kron) - Rich asked a question from one of the UC users regarding the status of the echelle front end. We took this to mean the slit camera, which has been especially cranky in recent months. Suzanne said that a new camera and computer are on order to replace this ancient, unmaintainable system. In the meantime, some software and network patches were implemented that seem to have gotten the camera to a state of reasonable reliability. ** Note added 11/11/11: The echelle slitviewer camera had a shutter problem this week which was fixed by ordering and installing a new shutter. It should now be operational again. ********************************** Discussion of telescope/instruments report: Suzanne said that we've enjoyed a remarkable year of good observing weather. Whereas we typically lose ~35% of all observing time to weather, last year it was only 24%. The telescope has been working well, and the seasonal behind-the-scenes adjustments are underway to tune it for cold-weather operation. A new B400 grating arrived at JHU and is being tested; we anticipate putting it into service in early December, and users will be warned to be on the lookout for differences in performance between the new and old gratings. We are also continuing the research for a possible new grating for the echelle, and Steve Smee and Robert Barkhouser plan a trip to APO to look at mounting design issues. Most of the staff engineering work in the past month was on NIC-FPS. It is still having readout problems, but we currently are letting users observe with the instrument on a shared-risk basis. We also have a new display routine that shows all the frames taken in a Fowler read so that read failures can be detected quickly. Suzanne is investigating establishing a long-term maintenance plan for NIC-FPS, possibly involving the UVa instrument group. Lastly, Agile was recently put back into use after a hiatus, and problems with its fiber communications were tracked down and fixed. Mark Klaene's detailed report for the reporting period follows: ************************* 3.5-m Telescope and Instruments Highlights 9/28/11 through 11/3/11 0) Overview We completed the GRIZLI (GRIZ Lambda Imager, previously known as PISCO) preliminary design review in October. On site reviewers included Fred Hearty and John Wilson from UVa and Jon Holtzman from NMSU. Members from other institutions are reviewing the documentation off line. An NMSU class trip took place in October and a large UVa class trip is scheduled for this month. Reminder, the Alamo/El Paso Shuttle has changed owners. Rates and schedule have changed but their contact information remains the same. A dry and relatively clear fall is upon us with more of the same forecasted for the winter. 1) Telescope The telescope has been operational with generally only minor problems reported. The moths made one last stand before the cold set in, causing some minor issues. A temporary loss of the 1 pps signal also required a controller reset that affected slews and tracking. As the temperature drops and the telescope equilibrates to a lower structural temperature, minor adjustments may be required to preloads and servo parameters. 2) Instruments DIS replacement Blue 400 grating has been ordered and is expected here around early December. Isolated problems with the DIS robotics have occurred and caused some loss time. This is not uncommon as the robotics electronics have a long history of intermittent problems. TSpec and SPIcam operated with no new issues. Echelle is operational. An MOU with JHU for the replacement grating order is in work. The ECAM (echelle slitviewer) problem has been improved significantly with some software modifications and network upgrades. The replacement camera order was delayed in purchasing and will not arrive until next year. NIC-FPS continued to be the issue of the month. Staff continued troubleshooting the instrument while learning the intricacies of the detector electronics. A bad fiber was also found between the ICC and the Leach controller. The icing of the bulkhead connector has been significantly reduced and possibly eliminated by a modification to the warm side of the connector. The image corruption issue is still with us but seems to be highly variable. There appears to be no logic as to when and how the images fail. Consequently we have returned the instrument to shared-risk observing status to help gather data on the frequency of the failures while collecting what we believe to be usable science data. Agile lost the timing signal from the ICC. The fiber to the computer room and the fiber to TTL converter were replaced, and it appears to be operational. GFP software development is continuing with a developer on site this week. ********************************** GRIZLI update: Suzanne gave an update on the newly named GRIZLI (thanks to Rene for the name which stands for GRIZ Lambda Imager, the instrument which was known as PISCO in its Magellan version) which is a new multi-band imager being built by Chris Stubbs and Tony Stark at Harvard/CfA. A PDR for the instrument was held at APO a couple of weeks ago, and the results were favorable. We expect a delivery at APO sometime in 2012 if all goes well, and in the meantime we are exploring scattered light issues in the telescope that may or may not be a problem for this wide-field camera. Bruce noted that given the large(r) FOV plus 4-color multiplexing, GRIZLI can be thought of as a significant fraction of the ODI instrument being built for WIYN. ********************************** Target of Opportunity update for Q1 scheduling: Suzanne referred to the ToO program we are running this quarter for a Princeton astronomer, who has access to PTF data. We will continue the ToO opportunities into next year for anyone interested, and Suzanne said that ToO preemptions will be limited to approximately 3 per quarter per user (1 per month). For Q1 scheduling, if a user plans to ask for 3 ToOs, that user should have 3 dark halfs allocated by the institution to be used for payback. Also, all should be aware that APO policy is that the PI of the pre-empted program is invited to collaborate and be an author on any publication that results from data taken during the ToO. Other details on the ToO policies and procedures are being reviewed and updated; Suzanne will bring these forward for review soon. ********************************** NIR imaging - NIC-FPS and NIIS status: NIC-FPS was discussed previously in the meeting. Suzanne mentioned that NIIS (Near-IR Imaging Spectrograph - which doesn't yet have a spectrograph, like NIC-FPS doesn't have an FPS) is a wide-field NIR imager being built by Michael Pierce at UWyoming. We are planning for it to come to APO as a visiting instrument for a week in March 2012. As we get closer to the date, we will determine if we can try to take commissioning observations on a shared-risk basis. Users committee members have the instrument details, so users should ask them if they would like to try to get some early data. It is unclear if we can ever use NIIS as a facility instrument, mainly because of its size -- it would displace two other instruments if we were to have it available routinely. One possibility would be to schedule its future use in campaign mode. ********************************** References needed for annual report: Suzanne said that Rene Walterbos has in the past graciously compiled the annual list of 3.5-m publications, theses, etc., for the annual Board meeting. Now that Rene is the ARC Board Chair, and heavily involved in AS3 and other ARC futures developments, we need to assemble the lists of telescope publications ourselves. We don't need these for next week's Board meeting, but we will need them by the end of the year. ===> ACTION: User committee members to assemble a listing of all 3.5-m telescope-related publications, theses, etc., published by users at their institutions from the past year, October 2010 through September 2011, and send list to Suzanne by 12 December. ********************************** ACTION ITEMS: [open from previous meeting]: ===> ACTION: Users Committee members to provide Mark and Suzanne with institutional science highlight for the year, by 17 October, 1 slide or figures plus text. STATUS: Discussed at this meeting, closed. [new actions from this meeting]: ===> ACTION: User committee members to assemble a listing of all 3.5-m telescope-related publications, theses, etc., published by users at their institution from the past year, October 2010 through September 2011, and send list to Suzanne by 12 December. ********************************** Next meeting: The next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday 12 December 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 1251 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