The idea that we need to improve the IR instrumentation at APO has been discussed at many levels. There are a few possibilities, but the situation is of course difficult given the diversity of scientific interests among APO users and the general lack of funds for major instrumentation initiatives. One possibility that is being considered is to "upgrade" GRIM; possible advantages of this are that it may be relatively affordable and also allow the possibility of low-resolution spectroscopy (as opposed to other scenarios in which we might get better imagers but lose spectroscopic capability altogether). Specifically, the idea is to replace the detector/electronics package in GRIM to provide SIGNIFICANTLY better readout noise, signal sampling, and stability. In addition, we could also replace/add grisms to solve the problem of order overlap for spectroscopy in the J bandpass, and probably provide a more optimal slit width for the "highest" resolution mode. Given that we most likely cannot upgrade the detector size (256x256), we would still probably only have relatively low spectral resolution (to maintain spectral coverage, probably wouldn't have more than R~=1000, which would still require several slits to get full coverage in the spectral windows, plus we would have R~=400 to get full coverage at lower resolution), and we would maintain our current (small) imaging field of view (2 arcminutes on a side at f/5). Another possibility might be to provide a cross-dispersed mode for spectroscopy, perhaps at higher resolution, although I need to further consider the feasibility of this. The purpose of this message is to find out how many users would find a significant scientific benefit if we implemented a scenario like this. Please comment if you think this upgrade would enable you to do things which you currently are unable to do. Alternatively, feel free to comment if there are IR observations you would like to make which CANNOT be achieved with this proposal, if you are totally satisifed with the current IR capabilities, any suggestions for other directions you would find more useful, etc. etc. Jon Holtzman, NMSU APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 484 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