Subject: 3.5-m Users Committee minutes 1/22/07
From: Bruce Gillespie
Submitted: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:40:12 -0700
Message number: 1009
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APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 1/22/07
Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Bruce Gillespie, Michael Strauss, Scott
Anderson, Jon Holtzman, Russet McMillan, John Bally
Absent: Don York, Rene Walterbos, Remy Indebetouw, John Fulbright, Al
Harper
Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie
**********************************
User feedback, comments from institutional representatives:
Princeton (Strauss) - Michael said that the PU users are wishing for
better weather. There is some frustration users have had with the
user documentation at the APO website. Suzanne mentioned that
Gabrelle Saurage has been enlisted to produce a basic users manual
for each instrument, and is working these with help from Jon Holtzman
and Jack Dembicky. The DIS manual is ready to go, and users are
invited to go look at it and give us comments; see http://
www.apo.nmsu.edu/35m_operations/35m_manual/Instruments/instrument%
20guides/disbasicusersguide.htm
JHU (Fulbright) - no report
Chicago (Harper) - no report
Washington (Anderson) - Scott said that there had been UW users
concerned with the DIS cal lamps issue (see telescope report) and
with the problems with the DIS slit view camera shutter.
NMSU (Holtzman) - Jon said that "stray light" has recently been seen
in DIS images. We're trying to confirm that it is caused by the CCD
heater, which was recently turned back on when we installed the new
red CCD.
Virginia (Indebetouw) - no report
Colorado (Bally) - John reported that he's recently used DIS with the
new red CCD, and that he's seen that the fringing is greatly improved.
**********************************
Discussion of telescope/instruments report:
The report is given below.
*************************
3.5-m Telescope, Instruments, and CIF Projects Highlights,
11/23/06 through 1/18/07
Bruce Gillespie
0) Overview
Winter weather has returned to the area, and the associated
cloudiness has frustrated several observing programs. But whenever
conditions have allowed, the staff and equipment were able to eke out
good science data. The good highlight for the period was the
successful installation of the new deep-depletion CCD for the red
camera of DIS--the new chip appears to have good sensitivity and much
reduced fringing in the deep red spectrum. The biggest trouble we
have had is an unreliable shutter in the DIS slitviewer.
1) Telescope
Other than routine maintenance, not much happened with the telescope
during the holidays, and it performed very well. Some tuning of the
drive servos was done to improve tracking performance, and a new
version of TUI is being site-tested prior to release to the users.
2) Instruments
DIS: Now that the DIS upgrade project is substantially complete, we
have found that the improved sensitivity and performance at both ends
of the spectrum has uncovered shortcomings in our lamp calibration
system. Our arc lamps have inadequate lines (mainly in the UV) and
the flat-field lamps have inadequate intensity. We also will need
decent arc lamps for TripleSpec later this year. We have decided to
undertake an overall study of the lamp calibration system
requirements for the telescope and all instruments, and plan to
invest in some new lamps, optics, and flat-field reflecting surface
(on the mirror covers) during the course of the year.
Throughput measurements of DIS were made, showing substantial
improvement in both the UV and red parts of the spectrum. The new
R1200 grating was damaged during handling while the grating tilt was
being adjusted. We have kludge-reinstalled the grating, but are
going to replace it anyway. The DIS slitviewer camera shutter became
balky during the cold weather. We have replaced the shutter and
modified the ventilation around the camera to keep it warmer during
the winter, but are also looking into shutterless operation of the
camera.
NIC-FPS: Stephane Beland is coming to APO next week to look into
recently reported problems with the camera controller.
3) Engineering and CIF projects
Work continues on TripleSpec, heading for a delivery to the site
possibly this summer. A plan to modify the NA2 instrument rotator is
underway, and a design requirements discussion was held for a future
CIF project to rebuild the tertiary mount and actuators. We have
also started work on upgrading the telescope drive controllers to
make them perform better and be maintainable.
4) Miscellaneous
Nick McDonald began work as the new 3.5-m Telescope Systems Engineer,
refilling the post Jon Davis vacated last year.
**********************************
Discussion of new site software protocols - group:
Suzanne asked how the new password and security protocols were
working out for the users. Everybody said they were OK. Scott said
that he was aware of problems people were having ftp-ing their data
from APO, some kind of timeout problem breaking the connection. It
wasn't immediately clear which end of the connection was causing this
problem, so Bruce will get Fritz to talk to Scott to try to work this
out.
**********************************
Discussion on fast guiding, rotator upgrade - group:
Suzanne gave a short report on the NA2 instrument rotator upgrade
project, planned for this year, which is being done in order to fix
long-standing problems with the rotator and to give it better
capacity to handle TripleSpec. We plan for a PDR in early April, and
the design work is being done by Mike Carr at Princeton. On fast
guiding, we are looking at this (again) partly because we're starting
the redesign of the tertiary mirror mount and actuator system, and
are wondering if tip-tilt provisions should be built in. Instead of
using the tertiary, it could be possible that a low-bandwidth tip-
tilt capability could be implemented at the 2ndary mirror, now that
the new top end is giving us better mechanical mount stiffness. But
would it be worth it? Apocryphal reports from people at other
telescope suggest that tip-tilt offers only modest image quality
improvements. We will explore this some more, and welcome any
comments from our users on the tip-tilt issue.
**********************************
Agile update - Hawley:
Agile, the high-speed photometer being built by Anjum Makadum, has
its commissioning run scheduled for mid-March. All the parts are in
hand, and Russell Owen and Ed Mannery are helping with the s/w and h/
w. It's possible that Agile could be available for shared-risk use
in Q2 2007, depending on how the commissioning run goes.
**********************************
Actions from earlier meetings - group
[open from previous months]:
None
[new actions from last month]:
ACTION: Rene to collect history of 3.5-m publications, and Bruce
will make a space for them on the APO website.
STATUS: Rene and Bruce are working on this, and it may be possible
to use the list Don York has produced for the ARC Futures document.
This list is presently being vetted for accuracy.
**********************************
Next meeting:
The next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday, 26 February, at
8:30 AM Pacific Time. Agenda and other materials will be sent to the
committee members during the preceding week.
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