Subject: APO 3.5-m Users Committee minutes 1/12/04

From: Bruce Gillespie

Submitted: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:36:23 -0700

Message number: 732 (previous: 731, next: 733 up: Index)

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APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 1/12/04

Attending:  Ed Turner, Michael Strauss, Bruce Gillespie, John Bally, 
Rene Walterbos, Al Harper, Jon Holtzman, Russet McMillan, Bruce Balick

Absent:  Karl Glazebrook, Don York

Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie


**********************************

2004 Capital Improvement Funds (CIF) Planning:

Ed Turner reported that there was intentionally no "community 
meeting" for 3.5-m CIF planning at the AAS this month (as was done in 
previous years), partly because we think we have a pretty clear 
picture of the CIF projects and priorities, and also because there 
was a relative scarcity of 3.5-m astronomers at the meetings, 
compared to previous years and venues.  Ed will spend Wednesday 
through Friday this week at APO to focus on making a first-cut 
allocation of priorities, money, and manpower for the CIF projects 
this year.  Some preliminary discussions have already been held by 
telecon, and users are invited to make any recommendations and 
comments to Ed on the below list of projects---they should do this 
quickly.

The not-prioritized list of CIF projects follows, as presented to the 
Board of Governors in November.

Finish telescope baffling at Nasmyth port
Finish and release new remote observing s/w
Build/buy spare parts for telescope drives
Re-design/build new telescope drives
Finish design of new mirror supports, actuators, safety systems
NIC-FPS support (manpower, some funding)
Near-IR spectrograph project (select source, funding)
SPIcam upgrade design (define project, form team)
Echelle throughput (AR-coated optics)

A few new projects have since surfaced; whether these are Sinking 
Fund or CIF projects is undetermined at this time.

Replace guiders at NA2 and echelle (Roper/Photometrics CCD camera 
units are increasingly unreliable)
GRIM2 repair (see below discussion)
Replace telescope drive servo controllers (current units obsolete, 
unmaintainable)

Even though we have significant carry-over funds from last year as 
well as new money this year, our manpower resources are limited, more 
so than in previous years.  It is clear that all these projects 
cannot be completed this year, so it is a good time for the Users 
Committee members to talk with their constituent users on which of 
these projects are important for their present and future science 
goals, and get any feedback to Ed Turner.

**********************************


Telescope Report:

Bruce Gillespie and Russet McMillan reported on the recent 
cold-weather problems with the telescope.  Over the holidays, the 
2ndary mirror actuators, the DIS grating drives, and possibly the 
enclosure shutter drives were malfunctioning and/or straining when 
the ambient temperature dropped below 15 degrees F.  This 
temperature, and colder, are normally seen on a handful of nights 
each winter, and we have always tried to maintain full operability 
down to close to 0 degrees.  Jon Davis and others are looking into 
these issues, and we hope to be able to make some relatively modest 
hardware changes to improve the cold-weather operation of the 
telescope.  It was mentioned that it is probably premature to set a 
cold-temperature closure limit for the telescope (there isn't one 
now), and that having to close the telescope at 15 degree would be 
painful.  [Note:  Kudos to several of the APO staff (Jon Davis, Mark 
Klaene, Dave Woods, Craig Loomis) who spent several "holiday" days at 
APO working on the cold-temperature problems, which enabled the 
telescope to operate effectively with very little actual down time]

On the remote user software side, the new multi-platform Telescope 
User Interface (TUI) seems to be a capable and comfortable remote s/w 
package for DIS users right now, and provides adequate support and 
SPIcam usage.  TUI is not yet useable for GRIM2, nor for the echelle 
because the echelle slit guiding routines have not yet been ported 
from Remark to TUI.  The big s/w development task left is to build a 
"grand" unified guiding module in TUI for all instruments, present 
and future.  This is expected to be finished in 6 to 12 months, but 
in the meantime we want to begin the process of transition from 
Remark to TUI.

Since TUI is a Python application running under Unix (or Mac OS X), 
remote s/w installation is more complicated than for Remark, and we 
will require a designated person at each user institution to perform 
the installation and relevant system administration, with help from 
APO staff and Russell Owen at UWashington.  By the end of January, 
the Users Committee members must identify this person at each 
institution, and forward the name and contact information to Ed 
Turner and Bruce Gillespie.  Remark will remain supported, at least 
through the end of this year, but when it is clear that TUI is 
sufficiently robust and has all its requisite functionality, Remark 
use on the telescope will be disabled after an adequate warning 
period.  As impetus to begin the TUI transition now, it was mentioned 
that recent use of Remark has exhibited some unusual behavior, and 
also that system security is much improved in TUI compared to Remark. 
[All said, Remark has been a wonderful remote software system over 
the years, in large part contributing to the success of remote 
operations at APO.  Our thanks to Bob Loewenstein, Don York, and all 
those who helped develop it and keep it running for more than the 
past ten years.]

**********************************

Instrument News


GRIM2 Status and Plans:

Bruce Gillespie and Al Harper reported that Dale Sandford spent a 
week at APO in December looking at the missing-quadrant problem on 
GRIM2.  Except for a possible cooling issue related to external 
electronics (which is being corrected this month), Dale determined 
that the root problem is most likely inside the dewar, possibly a 
loose wire or connector but maybe the detector itself.  At the end of 
Dale's visit, there were three working quadrants and one not working 
in a stable configuration.  John Barentine characterized the 
performance of the three working quadrants as being adequate for 
science, so the instrument was put back into service, sans one 
quadrant.  Since most GRIM2 science programs target small or point 
sources, a missing quadrant is not a show-stopper.  Unfortunately, in 
the two instances that GRIM2 has be since used on the sky, the 
missing quadrant has occasionally toggled between two quadrants, 
making observing a bit challenging.  Arranging the time and resources 
to open the dewar and try to fix this problem is going to be 
difficult and expensive, and probably can't even be attempted before 
April.

Since very little GRIM2 usage is scheduled in Q1 (probably because 
its status was indeterminate in Q4 when the Q1 proposals were 
selected), it is questionable whether spending the time and money in 
Q2 to find and fix the problem is worth it.  The telescope will be 
down for much of Q3 for its annual shutdown, and NIC-FPS is expected 
to be ready for initial science programs in the fall.  No decision 
was taken at this time whether or not to try to fix GRIM2 this 
spring, but we decided to continue to allow its use in a "flakey" 
four-quadrant mode and see if things settle down or get worse.  One 
possible test is to see if the missing quadrant is sensitive to 
rotator angle, and if so, we could restrict instrument rotation to 
see if we can use the instrument more reliably.  Another question 
raised is whether or not we should keep GRIM2 available after NIC-FPS 
is fully commissioned.  There was no compelling support given by the 
committee to keep GRIM2 in service much longer than it takes to get 
NIC-FPS working well, and to get it cross-calibrated with GRIM2 data 
so that GRIM2 users can continue their long-term programs with the 
new instrument.  If any GRIM2 users feel otherwise, they are invited 
to make their opinions known now.


NIC-FPS report:

John Bally reported that work on the instrument has resumed after the 
holidays, and that a target date in this coming fall is still the 
plan for science availability of NIC-FPS, but not initially with the 
Fabry-Perot option.


CFH12K:

This is regarding a recent announcement by the Canada-France-Hawaii 
Telescope consortium that their 12K imager is available for sale or 
trade, having been replaced with their new prime-focus imager, 
MegaCam.  John Bally proposes that we build an Integral-Field 
Spectrograph (IFS) using this camera and a lenslet array.  Coupled to 
the 3.5-m, this would be a unique instrument that could produce 
spectra at various resolving power for every element in an extended 
object a few arc-minutes across, up to 10^^5 spectra per image field. 
There is considerable enthusiasm within the committee to explore 
this, and there are opportunities for collaboration within and 
outside our consortium.  John has agreed to write a white paper 
describing the proposed instrument and some of the potential science 
problems it could address by the end of this month, and will 
distribute this document for comment.  Also, initial discussions with 
CHFT have already begun.


SPIcam upgrade:

John Bally reported that in a chance discussion with Bruce Woodgate, 
Bruce mentioned that he would be interested in seeing if the proposed 
focal reducer for SPIcam could be also used for the Goddard 
Fabry-Perot instrument.  This would necessitate making a modular 
focal reducer, which would probably force it to be usable at NA2 
only.  The advantage here is that both instruments could make 
beneficial use of a wider field, and a new guider and rotator would 
not be needed.

**********************************

Last month's minutes were approved without comment.

Next phonecon will be on Monday, February 9, 2004, at 11:30 AM Eastern Time


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<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
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 --></style><title>APO 3.5-m Users Committee minutes
1/12/04</title></head><body>
<div align="center"><b>APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon,
1/12/04</b></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Attending:&nbsp; Ed Turner, Michael Strauss, Bruce Gillespie,
John Bally, Rene Walterbos, Al Harper, Jon Holtzman, Russet McMillan,
Bruce Balick</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Absent:&nbsp; Karl Glazebrook, Don York</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>2004 Capital Improvement Funds (CIF) Planning:</b></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Ed Turner reported that there was intentionally no
&quot;community meeting&quot; for 3.5-m CIF planning at the AAS this
month (as was done in previous years), partly because we think we have
a pretty clear picture of the CIF projects and priorities, and also
because there was a relative scarcity of 3.5-m astronomers at the
meetings, compared to previous years and venues.&nbsp; Ed will spend
Wednesday through Friday this week at APO to focus on making a
first-cut allocation of priorities, money, and manpower for the CIF
projects this year.&nbsp; Some preliminary discussions have already
been held by telecon, and users are invited to make any
recommendations and comments to Ed on the below list of
projects---they should do this quickly.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The not-prioritized list of CIF projects follows, as presented to
the Board of Governors in November.</div>
<div><br></div>
<ul>
<li>Finish telescope baffling at Nasmyth port
<li>Finish and release new remote observing s/w
<li>Build/buy spare parts for telescope drives
<li>Re-design/build new telescope drives
<li>Finish design of new mirror supports, actuators, safety systems
<li>NIC-FPS support (manpower, some funding)
<li>Near-IR spectrograph project (select source, funding)
<li>SPIcam upgrade design (define project, form team)
<li>Echelle throughput (AR-coated optics)</ul>
<div><br></div>
<div>A few new projects have since surfaced; whether these are Sinking
Fund or CIF projects is undetermined at this time.</div>
<div><br></div>
<ul>
<li>Replace guiders at NA2 and echelle (Roper/Photometrics CCD camera
units are increasingly unreliable)
<li>GRIM2 repair (see below discussion)
<li>Replace telescope drive servo controllers (current units obsolete,
unmaintainable)</ul>
<div><br></div>
<div>Even though we have significant carry-over funds from last year
as well as new money this year, our manpower resources are limited,
more so than in previous years.&nbsp; It is clear that all these
projects cannot be completed this year, so it is a good time for the
Users Committee members to talk with their constituent users on which
of these projects are important for their present and future science
goals, and get any feedback to Ed Turner.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>Telescope Report:</b></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Bruce Gillespie and Russet McMillan reported on the recent
cold-weather problems with the telescope.&nbsp; Over the holidays, the
2ndary mirror actuators, the DIS grating drives, and possibly the
enclosure shutter drives were malfunctioning and/or straining when the
ambient temperature dropped below 15 degrees F.&nbsp; This
temperature, and colder, are normally seen on a handful of nights each
winter, and we have always tried to maintain full operability down to
close to 0 degrees.&nbsp; Jon Davis and others are looking into these
issues, and we hope to be able to make some relatively modest hardware
changes to improve the cold-weather operation of the telescope.&nbsp;
It was mentioned that it is probably premature to set a
cold-temperature closure limit for the telescope (there isn't one
now), and that having to close the telescope at 15 degree would be
painful.&nbsp; [Note:&nbsp; Kudos to several of the APO staff (Jon
Davis, Mark Klaene, Dave Woods, Craig Loomis) who spent several
&quot;holiday&quot; days at APO working on the cold-temperature
problems, which enabled the telescope to operate effectively with very
little actual down time]</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>On the remote user software side, the new multi-platform
Telescope User Interface (TUI) seems to be a capable and comfortable
remote s/w package for DIS users right now, and provides adequate
support and SPIcam usage.&nbsp; TUI is not yet useable for GRIM2, nor
for the echelle because the echelle slit guiding routines have not yet
been ported from Remark to TUI.&nbsp; The big s/w development task
left is to build a &quot;grand&quot; unified guiding module in TUI for
all instruments, present and future.&nbsp; This is expected to be
finished in 6 to 12 months, but in the meantime we want to begin the
process of transition from Remark to TUI.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Since TUI is a Python application running under Unix (or Mac OS
X), remote s/w installation is more complicated than for Remark, and
we will require a designated person at each user institution to
perform the installation and relevant system administration, with help
from APO staff and Russell Owen at UWashington.&nbsp;<b> By the end of
January, the Users Committee members must identify this person at each
institution, and forward the name and contact information to Ed Turner
and Bruce Gillespie.</b>&nbsp; Remark will remain supported, at least
through the end of this year, but when it is clear that TUI is
sufficiently robust and has all its requisite functionality, Remark
use on the telescope will be disabled after an adequate warning
period.&nbsp; As impetus to begin the TUI transition now, it was
mentioned that recent use of Remark has exhibited some unusual
behavior, and also that system security is much improved in TUI
compared to Remark.&nbsp; [All said, Remark has been a wonderful
remote software system over the years, in large part contributing to
the success of remote operations at APO.&nbsp; Our thanks to Bob
Loewenstein, Don York, and all those who helped develop it and keep it
running for more than the past ten years.]</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><b>Instrument News</b></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>GRIM2 Status and Plans:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Bruce Gillespie and Al Harper reported that Dale Sandford spent a
week at APO in December looking at the missing-quadrant problem on
GRIM2.&nbsp; Except for a possible cooling issue related to external
electronics (which is being corrected this month), Dale determined
that the root problem is most likely inside the dewar, possibly a
loose wire or connector but maybe the detector itself.&nbsp; At the
end of Dale's visit, there were three working quadrants and one not
working in a stable configuration.&nbsp; John Barentine characterized
the performance of the three working quadrants as being adequate for
science, so the instrument was put back into service, sans one
quadrant.&nbsp; Since most GRIM2 science programs target small or
point sources, a missing quadrant is not a show-stopper.&nbsp;
Unfortunately, in the two instances that GRIM2 has be since used on
the sky, the missing quadrant has occasionally toggled between two
quadrants, making observing a bit challenging.&nbsp; Arranging the
time and resources to open the dewar and try to fix this problem is
going to be difficult and expensive, and probably can't even be
attempted before April.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Since very little GRIM2 usage is scheduled in Q1 (probably
because its status was indeterminate in Q4 when the Q1 proposals were
selected), it is questionable whether spending the time and money in
Q2 to find and fix the problem is worth it.&nbsp; The telescope will
be down for much of Q3 for its annual shutdown, and NIC-FPS is
expected to be ready for initial science programs in the fall.&nbsp;
No decision was taken at this time whether or not to try to fix GRIM2
this spring, but we decided to continue to allow its use in a
&quot;flakey&quot; four-quadrant mode and see if things settle down or
get worse.&nbsp; One possible test is to see if the missing quadrant
is sensitive to rotator angle, and if so, we could restrict instrument
rotation to see if we can use the instrument more reliably.&nbsp;
Another question raised is whether or not we should keep GRIM2
available after NIC-FPS is fully commissioned.&nbsp; There was no
compelling support given by the committee to keep GRIM2 in service
much longer than it takes to get NIC-FPS working well, and to get it
cross-calibrated with GRIM2 data so that GRIM2 users can continue
their long-term programs with the new instrument.&nbsp; If any GRIM2
users feel otherwise, they are invited to make their opinions known
now.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>NIC-FPS report:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>John Bally reported that work on the instrument has resumed after
the holidays, and that a target date in this coming fall is still the
plan for science availability of NIC-FPS, but not initially with the
Fabry-Perot option.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>CFH12K:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>This is regarding a recent announcement by the
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope consortium that their 12K imager is
available for sale or trade, having been replaced with their new
prime-focus imager, MegaCam.&nbsp; John Bally proposes that we build
an Integral-Field Spectrograph (IFS) using this camera and a lenslet
array.&nbsp; Coupled to the 3.5-m, this would be a unique instrument
that could produce spectra at various resolving power for every
element in an extended object a few arc-minutes across, up to 10^^5
spectra per image field.&nbsp; There is considerable enthusiasm within
the committee to explore this, and there are opportunities for
collaboration within and outside our consortium.&nbsp; John has agreed
to write a white paper describing the proposed instrument and some of
the potential science problems it could address by the end of this
month, and will distribute this document for comment.&nbsp; Also,
initial discussions with CHFT have already begun.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>SPIcam upgrade:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>John Bally reported that in a chance discussion with Bruce
Woodgate, Bruce mentioned that he would be interested in seeing if the
proposed focal reducer for SPIcam could be also used for the Goddard
Fabry-Perot instrument.&nbsp; This would necessitate making a modular
focal reducer, which would probably force it to be usable at NA2
only.&nbsp; The advantage here is that both instruments could make
beneficial use of a wider field, and a new guider and rotator would
not be needed.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Last month's minutes were approved without comment.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Next phonecon will be on Monday, February 9, 2004, at 11:30 AM
Eastern Time</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
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