Dear ARC Astronomers, By now many of you are aware that the University of Colorado in conjunction with APO will soon deliver a new, state-of-the-art near-infrared imaging camera and Fabry-Perot spectrometer (code named "NIC-FPS") for operations on the 3.5m telescope. "First light" tests conducted on the 3.5m recently were highly successful; we anticipate that the instrument will go into routine service on or about Q2 of 2005. During November and December 2004, we will be commissioning the instrument at the site. We would like to solicit participation by scientists at ARC institutions in the "demonstration science" phase of the commissioning, which we expect will consist of 6-8 full nights of telescope time available on a shared-risk basis. Proposed rules for collaborations: 1) Participants explicitly acknowledge the shared-risk nature of the observations, and that instrument engineering needs take precedence over ALL science. Time lost to engineering or weather will not be compensated. 2) All persons involved in the design/fabrication and lab testing of the instrument, management individuals, and observers -- including students -- may claim authorship rights on any publications resulting from the use of data obtained during the agreed upon period. 3) Data will remain proprietary at the discretion of the science PI on individual observing proposals. Certain results may be used for in-house documents assessing instrument performance; any such use will carry a disclaimer regarding unauthorized release. An embargo date may be set prior to which results may not be released for publication. Details of release of results to media outlets for publicity purposes will be negotiated with PIs on a case-by-case basis. Interested individuals are welcome to offer their efforts as science PIs or participants willing to help in data reduction, analysis, etc. Contact either myself (instrument liaison for APO) jcb\apo.nmsu.edu or the instrument PI, James Green (jgreen\casa.colorado.edu) with enquiries. As usual, to thwart the spammers, replace the backslashes with "at" symbols in the email addresses. For more information about the instrument's capabilities, see these web pages: nicfps.colorado.edu http://tycho.apo.nmsu.edu:81/35m_manual/instruments/nicfps/nicfps_basic_info.html John Barentine, on behalf of the NIC-FPS Team APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 843 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