Hello all, Here is a message from Russet McMillan, which can now go out, now that the APO 3.5m mail exploders are working. Apologies that they were down for so long. -Michael Strauss Hello, everyone, The DIS upgrade is expected to occur very soon now, so it's finally time to make the newest version of Remark official. There have been many changes made since last summer, but most of the versions were still being tested or altered during the intervening months, and that is why Remark 2.62 has remained the official version until now. It's time to make the change because everyone will need to have the newest version in order to communicate with DIS after the upgrade (it also works now, before the upgrade). Many institutions with echelle observers are already running version 2.80a, but there has been one more bug fixed since then. The official version will now be Remark 2.80b. Version 2.62 will continue to work for telescope control and GRIM control (and DIS control until the instrument upgrade takes place), but we strongly recommend that you get the new version in place and running within the next two weeks. Here's a description of some of the changes that have occurred between version 2.62 and version 2.80b. General changes: These are mostly transparent. A few options that observers never used (except when pressing buttons by accident) have been removed. A few extra messages will scroll by in the Status and Debug windows, but everything else should be familiar. Changes to GRIM control: The interface will no longer try to move the instrument to f/20 when entering/exiting Dark mode. Otherwise, no changes. Changes to DIS control: A number of changes in lower-level command structure were made to enable Remark to talk to either old or new DIS, but these changes are mostly transparent at the Remark level. Some of the messages about moving gratings, reading out exposures, etc. have changed slightly, but the interface is essentially the same as before. Changes to Echelle control: The spectrograph control is mostly the same, with just a few alterations to some of the messages and signals (a double-beep to signal the end of readout, for example). The big change was in the slitviewer control, accounting for the vast majority of the work that has been done since last June. All echelle users except those at UW have seen the new controls, so I will just mention the general features: The slitviewer is now much more robust and less likely to crash; dark subtraction of longer slitviewer exposures is possible; and an autoguider is available through Remark. The autoguider's effectiveness varies somewhat depending on the of the target; it will be less effective for targets fainter than 10th magnitude, targets that badly saturate the slitviewer (use a filter to correct this), and the autoguider shouldn't be used at all on double stars. For most targets, the autoguider can be combined with occasional adjustments by hand to ensure the star stays where you want it with less need for constant vigilance. Here are instructions to get the newest version up and running on your Mac. It should be possible for any observer to make the upgrade in just a few minutes. In the event of problems, your older version of Remark should continue to be usable as long as it remains on the machine. Call or mail the observatory if you have trouble. 1) Use Fetch on your Mac to connect to Host ftp.apo.nmsu.edu, Username anonymous, your email for password, Directory pub/src . 2) Get the file Remark2.80b.sea.bin . Your desktop is a good place to put it. Once you have this file, you can exit Fetch. 3) Click on the Remark2.80b.sea.bin icon, and choose Extract. Again, the desktop is a good destination. a) If you are upgrading from 2.80a, this should be all you need to do. b) If you are upgrading from an earlier version like 2.62, it may want to replace your History file and some others. Let it replace any file it likes. Your various windows will show up in new places at first, but if you adjust them and then observe normally, it should remember the desired setup again. 4) Start up Remark 2.80b and connect with it to make sure it works. If it is daytime, phone or email the observatory first to find out if it's okay to connect right now. If it's nighttime, connecting should be fine, but don't raise your priority if you're not scheduled to observe. 5) Once you've confirmed that Remark 2.80b will start up and connect, you can move the sea.bin file to the trash. Please make sure that your institution's Remark is upgraded by the end of the month! Russet McMillan. APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 551 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