--============_-1137981110==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" 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 --============_-1137981110==_ma============ Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" <!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 } --></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: Ed Turner, Michael Strauss, Bruce Gillespie, John Bally, Rene Walterbos, Al Harper, Jon Holtzman, Russet McMillan, Bruce Balick</div> <div><br></div> <div>Absent: 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 "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.</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. 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. 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]</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. 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.</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. <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> 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.]</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. 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.</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. 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.</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. 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.</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. 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.</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> </div> </body> </html> --============_-1137981110==_ma============-- APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 732 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