The APO 3.5-meter will return to scheduled science operations tonight, Dec 6, following repair of what turned out to be relatively extensive malfunctions and damage in the secondary motion mechanisms and supports. That this work was accomplished with the loss of only five nights of scheduled science operations is due to the long hours of work and great dedication of the APO engineering and operation staff. After re-assembly and mounting the tertiary automated rotation system has proved inoperable. Tertiary rotation will have to be accomplished manually until it can be repaired; this will take roughly a half hour instead of the few minutes needed for automated rotation. By good fortune, only one such rotation is required in the next week by the existing schedule. That one occasion is between first and second half tonight (Dec 6); two Observing Specialists will be on duty in order to make the operation go as quickly as possible tonight. Ed Turner APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 726 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