Below are some notes I prepared for an NMSU faculty meeting, and Ed Turner suggested I also post them to the general APO mail server: Report covers summer happenings with projections through December 1996, not in any particular order (nor level of completeness): o "Baltimore Meeting" held at JHU 9 August, 3-year plan for telescope and instrument improvements discussed, final report to be available by end of month and given to ARC BoGovernors prior to annual meeting. Consensus to achieve top-tier telescope and instrument performance in less than three years. o Ed Kibblewhite and ChAOS team achieved closed-loop AO on bright star with 0.17 arcsec FWHM, and resolved a binary that is ~.2 arcsec separation. See writeup and pictures on APO web page under "Some Current Research Projects." Plan to use laser beacon in September for artificial guide stars. o Steve Knapp completed new aluminized slits for DIS, 2" and 3" wide. o Image quality generally better since 2ndary vane-tightening, braces for 2ndary cage, plus by reducing altitude servo gain. Typical seeing ~1.2 arcseconds, as good as .7 arcsec rarely. o Jim Fowler and others plotting project to improve network bandwidth and reliability for remote observing. o New 2ndary mirror blank has been rough-polished, selecting vendor to do final polishing now. o Recruiting two new Observing Specialists--Dan Long working on SDSS installation projects, and Eddie Bergeron returning to ST ScI. o Considerable work at site related to SDSS installation activities. o Shutdown plans for fall: Replace guider with new Photometrics camera, better sensitivity. Aluminize primary, 2ndary and tertiary mirrors. Replace remaining 3 enclosure wheels. Upgrade primary mirror support servo to cure primary mirror oscillation. Take DIS off-line to repair sensitivity, throughput and noise problems. Install new "Stubbs" 2048^2 prototype wide-field camera. o Also working projects to improve calibration quality and efficiency, including telescope and instrument baffling. Bruce Gillespie APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 77 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