To all users of the APO 3.5m telescope: In the last user's committee meeting (see the minutes in apo35-general message 10), we discussed the continuing frustration with the various problems that the telescope has been happening, and whether it makes sense to assign a larger fraction of time to engineering in the near future (next six months). Quoting from the minutes: Should we deal with problems as they arise, recognizing that we have increasing staff resources and increasing scientist participation? Or, should we declare some special focused effort to fix everything in some finite period of time? (Special shut down, special additional appeal to scientists for help, etc.). The consensus of the user's committee was that "all institutions would agree to having observers preempted by engineering demands, providing that the specific plan for an interruption and the likelihood of success because of the interruption were well advertised. There was a statement that we should respond fast to problems, as it would benefit the observatory in the long run." This approach has the advantage over engineering time scheduled well in advance that it can take care of problems when they arise and when there are people in place to fix them. It has the disadvantage, of course, that people will lose observing time. Do people agree with this approach? Please send comments, questions, arguments, etc., to your user's committee representative at your institution (me at Princeton, Lew Hobbs at Chicago, etc...) Michael Strauss APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 12 in the apo35-general archive. You can find APO the archive in /u/strauss/apo/mailer/apo35-general on astro.princeton.edu 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