APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 3/28/05 Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Michael Strauss, John Bally, Fred Hearty, Stephane Beland, Bruce Gillespie, Rene Walterbos, Don York Absent: Al Harper, Russet McMillan, Karl Glazebrook, Bruce Balick, Jon Holtzman Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie ********************************** UVa and Triplespec NIR spectrograph: Based on recent discussions with Bob Rood at UVa, Suzanne reported that the situation there may develop quickly to a point where we may need to discuss alternative arrangements with them to acquire the Triplespec NIR spectrograph for the 3.5-m telescope. Suzanne would like to confirm our users' potential interest in having Triplespec at APO in order to proceed using a variety of paths in the negotiations. Michael stated that Triplespec seems like a "wonderful thing" and that the 3.5-m telescope needs this instrument. He added that spectroscopic NIR followup would be broadly useful, and in particular for QSOs and brown-dwarf candidates identified by SDSS, plus for studies of unusual objects such as white dwarfs and carbon stars. Don asked when Triplespec could be on our telescope, and Suzanne said probably some time next year. John asked what the estimated value of the instrument was, and Suzanne replied around $1.2M. Don asked what the resolving power would be, and John replied that it would be around 3000. Don then asked if it weren't true that everybody is building or planning a NIR spectrographic capability for other telescopes, so in order to justify it for our telescope we would need to propose a large campaign-like program for it that could only be done at APO. Michael pointed out that everybody has a DIS-like instrument at their telescope, but our DIS is still the most-used instrument on our telescope, even for small programs; Triplespec would be similarly popular, in his opinion. Don then said that we need to determine the detailed "useful" spectral regions that Triplespec would furnish, given its resolution and contamination of the NIR spectrum by atmospheric features. Michael Strauss said a web site where the IR spectrum lives seems to be down right now, at a link off the UKIRT web site: http://www.jach.hawaii.edu. Bruce said that it's possible that John Wilson at UVa could furnish us with a simulated sample spectrum for our purposes. Don said the he thought it would be great, in general, for APO to have Triplespec. However, his personal interest for NIR emission-line spectroscopy would be largely satisfied better by the F-P in NIC-FPS, when that becomes available. Rene stated that NMSU astronomers are still interested in Triplespec, but that there is some concern about the potential cost in telescope time. John added that CU is interested in the long-slit capabilities of Triplespec, but they are also hoping to use the F-P in NIC-FPS for much of their science programs. Fred added that the F-P is not as useful for extra-galactic work as Triplespec would be. Suzanne, speaking for UW, said that her users are very interested in NIR spectroscopy, especially for stars. Based on this discussion and other factors, Suzanne announced she will talk to Bob Rood at UVa about alternative paths for ARC to acquire Triplespec for the 3.5-m telescope. ********************************** GRB status and plans: Suzanne said that four ARC institutions submitted 3.5-m GRB ToO proposals for Q2, designating 12 half-nights of time to compensate bumped observing programs. We had two alerts in March, and were able to get a NIR detection of an afterglow in K, H, J, and Z just last week. These alerts also pointed out some "grey areas" in our compensation policy for bumped observers, which will be sorted out and clarified shortly. Suzanne asked the Users Committee members to look at the GRB document which has been previously distributed to the committee members, but remember that there is proprietary information in the document--don't post it in a public place. Users should be encouraged to read it, and get their comments back to committee members and to their institutional representative of the ARC Futures Committee. Rene mentioned that NMSU had some ideas about the GRB-alert compensation policy, and which institutions should be charged for alerts and compensation time, plus concerns about protecting scheduled programs for thesis data. Suzanne said that the plan is to wait and see how much GRB alert observing actually happens in the coming quarter, and that institutions should use the schedule-protection block in the observing proposals in compelling cases. Don pointed out that Swift has announced that its alerts are going public in early April. He has also heard that the VLT is gearing up for an extensive queue campaign observing program for GRB alerts. Suzanne pointed out that we will still have an advantage of fast NIR and echelle response, plus our access to sky that the VLT cannot reach. ********************************** Summer shutdown plans: In the brief time remaining in the telecon, Suzanned mentioned that the 2005 schedule for CIF projects and various engineering maintenance work on the telescope is somewhat fluid in the July through October time frame; there will be more discussion on this in future meetings. ********************************** Recent progress at the site: Bruce G. reported that the new high-speed engineering camera (aka FastCamII) has been rendered fully operational and has been recently used to collect baseline data on image motion as part of the new top-end rebuild project. Also, he announced that Fritz Stauffer has accepted an offer to start on 18 April as the site's new Systems and Network Administrator, and will work closely with Craig Loomis. ********************************** Next phonecon will be on Monday, April 25, at 8:30 AM Pacific Time. APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 898 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