Subject: 10/06/03 APO 3.5m user's committee meeting minutes

From: Michael Strauss

Submitted: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 14:25:29 -0400

Message number: 713 (previous: 712, next: 714 up: Index)

		APO 3.5m User's Committee Phonecon, 10/06/03

Attending: Ed Turner, Bruce Gillespie, Michael Strauss, Bruce Balick,
Rene Walterbos, Mike Shull, Jon Holtzmann

Absent: Al Harper, Don York, Karl Glazebrook, Jim Green, Russett McMillan

This was quite a brief meeting. 

***********Upcoming Board of Governor's Meeting***************
The meeting is now seven weeks away.  There are no suggestions yet
for science highlights to be presented at the meeting; please let Ed
Turner know if you have something good.  Also, Rene still needs UC
representatives to send him lists of publications based on 3.5m data
over the last year. 
  Ed plans to talk about plans to build an IR spectrograph (see below). 
  Other than that, it should be a fairly routine meeting.  

  One subject that might be worthy of discussion is the future of the
  3.5m in the light of the uncertainty of the future of the SDSS
  operations.  There was essentially no discussion at the recent SDSS
  Advisory Council meeting of possible joint operations of the two
  facilities, although at their meeting a year ago, the 3.5m
  connection to the SDSS was considered by many to be a strong asset.  

**************IR spectrograph prospects*************
   There is strong interest in the collaboration in the proposed
   R~4000 infrared spectrograph that has been designed by Alan Uomoto
   and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins.  This project has been dealt
   two serious blows recently: a proposal for funding to the NSF was
   turned down, and Alan has left JHU.  There are discussions at JHU
   for identifying a PI.  The detector is the principal item whose
   source of funding is the topic of speculation. 

********************NA2 guider******************
  This has been returned, and is now functional.  We will get an updated
  pointing model at next engineering time (Wednesday/Thursday night).
  However, there is the remnants of a hurricane bearing down on the
  site; if this doesn't allow the pointing model to be done, it may be
  necessary to   pre-empt a bit of science time to get it done, later
  in the week or next week. 

***********************CORMASS*****************
  Jon Holtzman sent around a description (apo35-general 708) of this
low-resolution (R~300) near-infrared spectrograph that John Wilson and Mike
Skrutskie want to bring to the mountain as a visitor instrument.  He
has gotten some expressions of interest, but the response has not been
overwhelming.  Everybody, if this is an instrument which you would
like to use, let Jon know!  On a related matter, John Wilson is
planning to visit APO this weekend, to discuss what would be involved
with using it on the 3.5m.  

Last month's minutes are approved. 

Next meeting Monday, November 10, 11:30 AM Eastern Time

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