Everybody, I would like to clarify a couple of points from Bruce's minutes from the Users Committee meeting. > Colorado (Bally) - John talked about the recent fast sub-frame > observing mode for NIC-FPS, which was implemented to support the > Pluto occultation. One glitch discovered is that if you ask for > full-frame exposures with Fowler sampling set to a large number, > the instrument control computer crashes. ... The problem showed up when clicking on the "Abort" button in the NICFPS Expose window in the TUI while doing a large set of NFS exposures. Doing a large number of NFS full-frame exposures works fine (as long as you don't abort). I'll look into this a will let everybody know when a fix is in place. > > New plans for NIC-FPS - Bally: > ... > o The science-grade chip will most likely be sent to Rockwell to > connect some leads that will enable reading all 16 channels of the > array. This will reduce the read noise by allowing much faster > multiple-read Fowler sampling, which we can't do now with the > single-channel readout. Also, the video cards in the Leach > controller will be replaced to handle the extra channels. There is > some risk in having Rockwell work on the chip, but it is considered > to be minimal, and the engineering-grade chip is a suitable backup > if something bad happens to the science-grade chip. > ... Saying that the engineering grade chip is "a suitable backup" is a long stretch. We have NO characterization data on this chip: we don't know what the QE is, the read noise, dark current, well depth, etc. There is a small but obvious cosmetic defect in the middle of the chip that we know doesn't flatten out. This is an engineering chip for a reason. I still believe the risk in adding the wires to be small since this is a process that Rockwell does on every chip they produce. Stéphane Béland Senior Professional Research Assistant University of Colorado at Boulder Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (303)-492-3657 sbeland@colorado.edu APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 1021 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