Subject: APO Users Committee minutes, 9/15/03
From: Bruce Gillespie
Submitted: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 09:30:20 -0600
Message number: 703
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APO 3.5m User's Committee Phone Conference
Sept. 15, 2003
Attending: Ed Turner, Rene Walterbos, Mike Shull, Karl Glazebrook,
Jon Holtzman, Al Harper, Bruce Balick, Bruce Gillespie, Russet
McMillan
Absent: Don York, Jim Green, Michael Strauss
Agenda:
Director search
Instruments
NICFPS
Echelle upgrade
IRspec
CorMASS
Shutdown report
Telescope
Drives
TUI
No shows - home phones?
BoG meeting prep
Director search: (Shull, Walterbos, Balick)
The announcement has been posted to apo35general. Members of the
Users Committee are encouraged to suggest names (to Bruce Balick,
search committee chair) and to encourage candidates to apply. We are
trying to identify someone early so he/she can overlap in time with
Ed's last year as Director. It would be useful if we had someone
selected by November, prior to the Board meeting.
Instruments:
NICFPS: (Shull)
Jon Morse is now at Ariz. State, Jim Green has taken over as PI. The
dewar is coming along nicely, and the detector is at Ball Aerospace
in preparation for tests and characterization. Jim can make a more
detailed report, possibly at the next Users Committee telecon.
Echelle upgrade (group)
Don York has announced that he doesn't intend to propose for the
detector upgrade because it isn't clear that one can be obtained that
is significantly better than the chip already in the instrument. It
was mentioned that the HST WFIII instrument might have some
3-electron EEV chips to spare, if someone cares to check. Also, the
possibility of putting broad-band AR coatings on the echelle
refractive optics could buy us nearly a factor of two more
throughput, for only several $10ks--Ed will encourage Don to look
into this.
IRspec (Turner)
Alan Uomoto has left JHU for the Magellan project. According to Tim
Heckman and Steve Smee at JHU, the design work has been "captured"
and can be made available to us. JHU has been (or is being) asked if
they want to make a proposal to complete the instrument. If not,
other resources will be looked into to build the instrument.
The outstanding lien in the JHU/Chicago "arrangement" is now to be
resolved internally between the two institutions, without using any
ARC funds. The CIF monies that had been earmarked for servicing the
arrangement if JHU were to build the spectrograph as originally
planned could be reprogrammed for building it elsewhere. We would
only need to raise a relatively small amount of new funding. Also,
we have recently learned that U Virginia is planning to build three
comparable near-IR spectrographs, and that they are aware of our
potential interest in having such an instrument at the 3.5-m.
CorMASS
U Virginia scientists Mike Skrutskie and John Wilson are in
discussions with us on loaning us their R=300 near-IR spectrograph,
CorMASS. It was recently commissioned on the Palomar 60-inch
telescope, and currently resides at the Vatican Telescope at Mt.
Graham. We will poll the ARC user community to see what level of
interest there is on having CorMASS available at the 3.5-m. It is
possible that initial testing of the instrument at APO would be
scheduled for this coming spring. The instrument should be capable
of low-res spectra of targets as faint as I < 15-16 mags, with
simultaneous wavelength coverage from 1 to 2.5 microns.
Shutdown report - status and unresolved problems: (Gillespie)
All major shutdown tasks were accomplished. The principal remaining
problems are related to the two Roper guide cameras at the NA2 port
and the echelle slit viewer. Both cameras were sent to Roper in
Tucson during the shutdown for repairs of various problems. The
echelle slit guider was experiencing infrequent crashes in the data
side of the device. Roper could not duplicate the problem, replaced
much of the digital electronics, and sent it back. It still crashes,
on the order of once every few thousand frames. It is back in
service, and we are looking at ways to better diagnose and/or work
around the problem in software. The NA2 guider had been experiencing
multiple problems, and Roper spent several weeks in diagnosis and
repair. As of the writing of these minutes, the problems have been
found and fixed and we hope to have the NA2 guider back in service
within the next few days. We have begun some serious consideration
of replacing the NA2 guide camera with one from a different supplier.
Telescope: (Gillespie)
Drives
The recently rebuilt drives on the 3.5-m now seem to be working well,
but we feel that the original design and construction of the boxes
will result in more drive breakdowns in the future, of the order of
months from now. We are giving serious consideration to redesigning
and replacing the drives, or at least building spare units. One
interesting development is that both the WIYN and SDSS 2.5-meter
telescopes have recently developed failed bearings in their
direct-capstan drive systems, and a good deal of engineering effort
is going into trying to understand the cause. We plan to join these
efforts since the problem is germane to the 3.5-m, even though its
drive systems are of different design.
TUI
The new Telescope User Interface remote software is nearing
completion, and a release plan needs to be developed (Craig Loomis
and Russ Owen have agreed to make a first stab at it). We will need
institutional test drivers, and there is a possibility that Russet
McMillan can demonstrate it to Chicago users when she visits there in
October.
No shows - home phones? (Group)
There was a limited discussion on the merits of having home phone
numbers put in the observing proposals. A recent no-show may have
caught early in the night if the Observing Specialists had been able
to make phone contact with the observer at home. The down side of
putting home phone numbers in the observing proposals (optionally, of
course), is that these proposals are accessible by the public and
many astronomers would be loathe to have there personal information
in such a website. In the past, the Observing Specialists have
informally collected home phone numbers, but the list is incomplete
and somewhat out of date. The committee had no real advice or
comments about this, so we'll mull over it some more.
BoG meeting prep: (Turner, Walterbos)
Ed asks the Users Committee to solicit examples of interesting 3.5-m
science results and images from the past year (since last November)
for use at the upcoming Board of Governors meeting in November.
These are always used at the meeting, and are generally the first
thing discussed in the 3.5-m annual report. Also, Rene Walterbos
needs help assembling the 3.5-m publication list from the past year,
including preprints and Ph.D. theses. Please send him these data
directly.
Miscellaneous: (Gillespie, Balick)
Tom Murphy and Chris Stubbs are the Co-Is on the proposal to conduct
Lunar Laser Ranging with the 3.5-m. With their recent departures
from UWashington, Bruce Balick stated that the university plans to
fully support the project, and will designate new faculty members as
the ARC contacts.
Also, with the departure of Chris Stubbs, the position of 3.5-m
Telescope Scientist is vacant. Ed intends to play this by ear;
e..g., if an energetic and talented ARC astronomer surfaces and shows
an active interest in the telescope, the position could be filled.
However, it is not clear that a search needs to be undertaken to fill
this position with any urgency.
Balick thanked APO for recently hosting a large group of students who
were on-site for telescope orientation--these training visits seem to
be extremely productive and are a good use of the telescope.
Last month's minutes are approved.
Next meeting: Monday, October 6, 11:30 AM Eastern time.
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--></style><title>APO Users Committee minutes,
9/15/03</title></head><body>
<div align="center">APO 3.5m User's Committee Phone Conference</div>
<div align="center">Sept. 15, 2003</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Attending: Ed Turner, Rene Walterbos, Mike Shull, Karl
Glazebrook, Jon Holtzman, Al Harper, Bruce Balick, Bruce Gillespie,
Russet McMillan</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Absent: Don York, Jim Green, Michael Strauss</div>
<hr>
<div>Agenda:</div>
<div>Director search</div>
<div>Instruments</div>
<div> NICFPS</div>
<div> Echelle upgrade<br>
IRspec</div>
<div> CorMASS</div>
<div>Shutdown report</div>
<div>Telescope<br>
Drives</div>
<div> TUI</div>
<div>No shows - home phones?</div>
<div>BoG meeting prep</div>
<hr>
<div>Director search: (Shull, Walterbos, Balick)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The announcement has been posted to apo35general. Members
of the Users Committee are encouraged to suggest names (to Bruce
Balick, search committee chair) and to encourage candidates to apply.
We are trying to identify someone early so he/she can overlap in time
with Ed's last year as Director. It would be useful if we had
someone selected by November, prior to the Board meeting.</div>
<hr>
<div>Instruments:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div> NICFPS: (Shull)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Jon Morse is now at Ariz. State, Jim Green has taken over as PI.
The dewar is coming along nicely, and the detector is at Ball
Aerospace in preparation for tests and characterization. Jim can
make a more detailed report, possibly at the next Users Committee
telecon.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div> Echelle upgrade (group)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Don York has announced that he doesn't intend to propose for the
detector upgrade because it isn't clear that one can be obtained that
is significantly better than the chip already in the instrument.
It was mentioned that the HST WFIII instrument might have some
3-electron EEV chips to spare, if someone cares to check. Also,
the possibility of putting broad-band AR coatings on the echelle
refractive optics could buy us nearly a factor of two more throughput,
for only several $10ks--Ed will encourage Don to look into this.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div> IRspec (Turner)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Alan Uomoto has left JHU for the Magellan project.
According to Tim Heckman and Steve Smee at JHU, the design work has
been "captured" and can be made available to us. JHU
has been (or is being) asked if they want to make a proposal to
complete the instrument. If not, other resources will be looked
into to build the instrument.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The outstanding lien in the JHU/Chicago "arrangement"
is now to be resolved internally between the two institutions, without
using any ARC funds. The CIF monies that had been earmarked for
servicing the arrangement if JHU were to build the spectrograph as
originally planned could be reprogrammed for building it elsewhere.
We would only need to raise a relatively small amount of new funding.
Also, we have recently learned that U Virginia is planning to build
three comparable near-IR spectrographs, and that they are aware of our
potential interest in having such an instrument at the 3.5-m.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div> CorMASS</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>U Virginia scientists Mike Skrutskie and John Wilson are in
discussions with us on loaning us their R=300 near-IR spectrograph,
CorMASS. It was recently commissioned on the Palomar 60-inch
telescope, and currently resides at the Vatican Telescope at Mt.
Graham. We will poll the ARC user community to see what level of
interest there is on having CorMASS available at the 3.5-m. It
is possible that initial testing of the instrument at APO would be
scheduled for this coming spring. The instrument should be
capable of low-res spectra of targets as faint as I < 15-16 mags,
with simultaneous wavelength coverage from 1 to 2.5 microns.</div>
<hr>
<div>Shutdown report - status and unresolved problems:
(Gillespie)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>All major shutdown tasks were accomplished. The principal
remaining problems are related to the two Roper guide cameras at the
NA2 port and the echelle slit viewer. Both cameras were sent to
Roper in Tucson during the shutdown for repairs of various problems.
The echelle slit guider was experiencing infrequent crashes in the
data side of the device. Roper could not duplicate the problem,
replaced much of the digital electronics, and sent it back. It
still crashes, on the order of once every few thousand frames.
It is back in service, and we are looking at ways to better diagnose
and/or work around the problem in software. The NA2 guider had
been experiencing multiple problems, and Roper spent several weeks in
diagnosis and repair. As of the writing of these minutes, the
problems have been found and fixed and we hope to have the NA2 guider
back in service within the next few days. We have begun some
serious consideration of replacing the NA2 guide camera with one from
a different supplier.</div>
<hr>
<div>Telescope: (Gillespie)</div>
<div> </div>
<div> Drives</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The recently rebuilt drives on the 3.5-m now seem to be working
well, but we feel that the original design and construction of the
boxes will result in more drive breakdowns in the future, of the order
of months from now. We are giving serious consideration to
redesigning and replacing the drives, or at least building spare
units. One interesting development is that both the WIYN and
SDSS 2.5-meter telescopes have recently developed failed bearings in
their direct-capstan drive systems, and a good deal of engineering
effort is going into trying to understand the cause. We plan to
join these efforts since the problem is germane to the 3.5-m, even
though its drive systems are of different design.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div> TUI</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The new Telescope User Interface remote software is nearing
completion, and a release plan needs to be developed (Craig Loomis and
Russ Owen have agreed to make a first stab at it). We will need
institutional test drivers, and there is a possibility that Russet
McMillan can demonstrate it to Chicago users when she visits there in
October.</div>
<hr>
<div>No shows - home phones? (Group)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>There was a limited discussion on the merits of having home phone
numbers put in the observing proposals. A recent no-show may
have caught early in the night if the Observing Specialists had been
able to make phone contact with the observer at home. The down
side of putting home phone numbers in the observing proposals
(optionally, of course), is that these proposals are accessible by the
public and many astronomers would be loathe to have there personal
information in such a website. In the past, the Observing
Specialists have informally collected home phone numbers, but the list
is incomplete and somewhat out of date. The committee had no
real advice or comments about this, so we'll mull over it some
more.</div>
<hr>
<div>BoG meeting prep: (Turner, Walterbos)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Ed asks the Users Committee to solicit examples of interesting
3.5-m science results and images from the past year (since last
November) for use at the upcoming Board of Governors meeting in
November. These are always used at the meeting, and are
generally the first thing discussed in the 3.5-m annual report.
Also, Rene Walterbos needs help assembling the 3.5-m publication list
from the past year, including preprints and Ph.D. theses. Please
send him these data directly.</div>
<hr>
<div>Miscellaneous: (Gillespie, Balick)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Tom Murphy and Chris Stubbs are the Co-Is on the proposal to
conduct Lunar Laser Ranging with the 3.5-m. With their recent
departures from UWashington, Bruce Balick stated that the university
plans to fully support the project, and will designate new faculty
members as the ARC contacts.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Also, with the departure of Chris Stubbs, the position of 3.5-m
Telescope Scientist is vacant. Ed intends to play this by ear;
e..g., if an energetic and talented ARC astronomer surfaces and shows
an active interest in the telescope, the position could be filled.
However, it is not clear that a search needs to be undertaken to fill
this position with any urgency.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Balick thanked APO for recently hosting a large group of students
who were on-site for telescope orientation--these training visits seem
to be extremely productive and are a good use of the telescope.</div>
<hr>
<div><br></div>
<div>Last month's minutes are approved.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Next meeting: Monday, October 6, 11:30 AM Eastern time.</div>
</body>
</html>
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