Just a comment on the NIR spectrograph following the user's committee minutes. I think triplespec is actually at a quite unique position in the parameter space of NIR spectrographs, with the combination of continuous spectral coverage, good throughput and reasonably high spectral resolution. I am not aware of any other instrument like that on 4-m class telescope. The only one comes to mind is GNIRS on Gemini-south, in cross-dispersion mode with R of 2000 or so, which is one of the truly powerful instrument currently on Gemini. R of a few thousand is a sweet point between resolving most of the OH forest and being still sky limited in the dark part of the sky. The science that takes advantage of such instrument would require a combination of spectral coverage and resolution, and reasonably faint, but not too faint targets, such as Michael's examples of high-z quasar emission line/continuum or brown dwarf/young star spectroscopy, or galaxy spectroscopy at moderate redshift, e.g. follow-up of dusty galaxies in Spitzer. But one worry is that if a 3.5m telescope would be too small for some of the science. Again this would be if not the only one, one of the very few with the combination of spectral coverage and resolution on 4-m class telescope, and besides GNIRS, there are only one or two more being planned on even larger telescopes. Cheers, Xiaohui -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Xiaohui Fan :"": Steward Observatory Email: fan@as.arizona.edu :@@: The University of Arizona :: :\/: :: 933 N. Cherry Ave. Tel : (520) 626-7558 ::_: :_:: Tucson, AZ 85721-0065 Fax : (520) 621-1532 :__ __: : : : : URL: http://sancerre.as.arizona.edu/~fan/ : : \ : | / _____\_//__________________________________________________\\: \|//___ APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 899 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