Subject: DIS slits

From: Bob Nichol

Submitted: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 19:29:34 -0500

Message number: 131 (previous: 130, next: 132 up: Index)

Dear All,

This email is a result of a recent conversation with
Bruce Gillispie. He informed me that very soon the 
ARC will be at full capacity for carrying out
faint object spectrscopy with the scheduled upgrades
to the guider, DIS and the recent mirror coatings.

With such a prospect on the horizon, I'd like to take
this opportunity to canvas the ARC community about the
possibility of setting up a more robust and routine 
mechanism for constructing DIS slit masks on the mountain.
As a specific example, I have been imaging distant
x-ray clusters of galaxies with the ARC for several years
now but have always been unsuccessful in starting a
multi-object spectroscopic follow-up campaign. Such
a project would really require the flexibility and
ease of constructing metal multi-slit masks at APO.
Therefore, I have toyed with the idea of proposing
for a slit-punching machine on the mountain (like
EFOSC at ESO, MOS at the CFHT).

Bruce tells me that there are several other observers
who may find such a facility useful and would use it
extensively if it was at the mountain. This is 
especially true if the facility was automated 
such that there was a minimal turn around and one 
did not have to have extensive planning 
beforehand (i.e. aquiring the masks from an 
outside vender).

Could you please;

a) email if you would be very interested in exploring
   this idea with me and may be able to supply some
   time and effort in the future,
b) email me you would use such a system if it was available
   but would not be a primary user
c) email me if you have any insight into such things
   and an estimate of the cost.
   
If I get little or no feedback, I will abandon the
idea and you will hear nothing else from me about this.

Thanks

Bob Nichol

--------------------------------------------------------
Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 
Forbes Avenue, 
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890, phone: 412-268-8068, Fax: 
412-681-0648 
email: nichol@astro.phys.cmu.edu / nichol@cmu.edu
	    
			    
	
  





   
  
APO APO APO APO APO  Apache Point Observatory 3.5m  APO APO APO
APO
APO  This is message 131 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