Subject: APO 3.5m User's committee meeting, 05/13/02
From: Bruce Gillespie
Submitted: Thu, 16 May 2002 09:53:54 -0600
Message number: 579
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Apache Point Observatory 3.5m User's Committee Meeting
May 13, 2002
Attending: Bruce Gillespie, Ed Turner, Michael Strauss, Lew Hobbs,
Jon Holtzman, Rene Walterbos, Jon Morse, Alan Uomoto, Bruce Balick,
Mike Shull
Absent: Chris Stubbs
********** Status of the DIS upgrade: **********
Ed Turner: Through the influence of the good offices of Chris
Stubbs, Marconi EEV was able to locate a Grade 0 (the best)
replacement chip for the blue side of DIS. We expect this new chip
to arrive this week and be installed next week with minimal, if any,
impact to scheduled DIS observing. If the replacement detector is
successfully installed, both sides of DIS will be operable by about
the 24th of May, including the improved blue throughput from the blue
dewar lens replacement with the proper AR coating. The damaged chip
is at EEV for evaluation, and if it can be repaired, it will be
returned and used as a spare.
********** JHU Near-IR spectrograph workshop: **********
Alan Uomoto: The new APO infrared spectrograph design will be
presented in Baltimore on Tuesday, May 21, 2002, 10:30AM to 5:00PM at
the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy on the JHU Homewood
campus. The purpose is to confirm the technical and scientific goals
of the project and to perform a preliminary design review. [Note:
the latest information on this meeting with room number and earlier
ending time was just posted to apo35-general by Alan Uomoto.]
Reference information for the instrument is at:
http://annabel-lee.pha.jhu.edu/Irspec/RefBook/book1.html
ARC people are welcome (but JHU does not have travel funds for
general ARC attendees). Please reply to Alan Uomoto <au@jhu.edu> if
you plan to attend (including JHU people).
If you can't make it but have comments, send them to Alan soon,
construction of the spectrograph will commence shortly after the
review.
Jon Morse: What have been comments so far regarding resolution?
Alan Uomoto: R=4000 is the best that can be done with this
instrument, although the baseline was for R=1000 for quasars, etc.
********** Loaned and Special filters policy **********
Ed Turner: ARC and other astronomers have "loaned" optical filters
to APO over the years, and APO has accommodated the occasional use of
special and non-standard sized filters for its instruments. Recent
events have led to the following proposed policy and procedure
regarding standard and special filters on loan to APO:
Loaned and Special filters policy
Filters of the appropriate size may be brought/mailed to APO for use
in SPIcam and DIS. Use of astronomer-furnished filters in the other
instruments is discouraged. Notify APO staff
(techstaff@apo.nmsu.edu) at least 2 weeks in advance if you intend to
bring and use standard-size filters in SPIcam or DIS. We require
that these filters be at APO at least two working days prior to their
planned use. For filters with non-matching shapes or sizes, contact
techstaff@apo.nmsu.edu at least one month in advance of their planned
use for an evaluation of feasibility.
Unless there is a compelling reason made in writing to the Director,
all loaned filters at APO will be made available to other telescope
users without first securing the owner's permission. A list of the
loaned filters will be kept on the APO website, with the owner's name
and contact information. If an astronomer wishes to use one or more
of these filters, it would be advisable to contact its owner to
ensure that the filter(s) will be at APO when needed.
If a loaned filter is damaged or lost while at APO, the observatory
will assume responsibility for its replacement. Filters will be
fully insured by the owner when shipped to the site, and filters will
be fully insured by APO when they are shipped back to the owner.
********** No-Show policy **********
Ed Turner, Bruce Gillespie: One of the problems with remote PI
observing at APO is that occasionally the remote observer doesn't
show up (in the virtual sense). This happens some 2 or 3 times a
year, and a recent occurrence has prompted discussion of formalizing
a policy and procedure for no-shows. In past instances of no-shows,
we have made a frantic and concerted effort to find substitute
science and/or engineering uses for the telescope. The purpose of
the policy is to ensure that very little usable telescope time goes
unused, following a set of relatively simple rules.
[Director's note: Although how an institution's 3.5-m time is used
is to some extent the institution's responsibility, the Director and
Observatory are charged by the ARC Board of Governors to make the
most effective overall use of the facility. Remote observers are
expected to contact the observatory at least a day in advance with
setup requirements, and to log-on or call the observatory staff at
least a half-hour before their scheduled observing time starts. This
includes situations even where the weather *LOOKS* hopeless.]
A first draft of this policy was discussed by the Users Committee,
and several points were made which have been incorporated below:
"No-Show" policy
If a scheduled remote observer does not log-in or notify APO by at
least 15 minutes before the beginning of their scheduled observing
time, he/she is defined as a "no-show" and the following procedure
and policies will be invoked in an hierarchical manner:
The Observing Specialist will attempt to telephone the PI and/or
designated remote observers using only the phone numbers given in the
observing proposal. We will add an optional field in the observing
proposals for home/contact phone numbers for the PI and observers.
This allows us to avoid having to keep a rolodex of home phone
numbers for the ever-changing cast of remote observers. We'll have
to ensure that the home phone numbers are not accessible through our
public web server, however.
If the remote observer fails to contact the site by 10 minutes after
the scheduled starting time or is not reachable by phone, the
following options are tried first:
1) if the no-show is on 2nd half, the time is offered to the first
half observer
2) if the no-show is on 1st half, the time is offered to the 2nd half observer
If these options do not work, the Observing Specialist will attempt
to reach the institutional Scheduler by phone only if the program is
for the first half of the night. We will need to get the office and
home numbers of the Schedulers. These will go in a private phone list
kept in the control room. The Scheduler will be given the
opportunity to designate another program to run on the telescope,
with a different observer (if possible), or in service observing mode
(if practical).
If none of these options works, the default is to initiate some
specified backup science (service observing mode), engineering,
training, and/or PR programs.
If the no-show observer "shows up" later during their scheduled time,
they will be told by the Observing Specialist that they have
forfeited their time to another science program (if one has been
started). If other kinds of observing has been substituted (e.g.,
engineering), the now "late" observer will be given the option of
using the remaining time for their science program.
All of the scheduled time for a no-show will be booked against that
program ID and institution, regardless of the alternative use of the
telescope. The Observing Specialist will detail what happened in the
night log, and no other report of the no-show incident needs to be
made. The Director or designee will ensure that the institutional
Scheduler is made aware of the no-show incident.
This policy assumes the no-show has a program with a half night or
more of telescope time. If the no-show is scheduled for a block of
time less than 1 hour, there really isn't more than about 10-15
minutes that can be usefully spent looking for people. For these
short programs, the Observing Specialist should try to contact the PI
or observers for at most 10 minutes starting 15 minutes before the
beginning of the scheduled block, then the PI or observer for the
previous/next program should be contacted and invited to
continue/start early. In this case, the no-show forfeits any time
remaining once a substitute science program has begun setup and/or
data acquisition.
********** NIC-FPS report **********
Jon Morse: The enhanced Rockwell 1RG detector is being purchased,
weekly telecons with the APO site engineering staff have started to
work the telescope/instrument interface issues, and a site visit to
APO is planned by the instrument group for June 13 to discuss the
mechanical interfaces face-to-face. One design issue that has
surfaced is whether or not to include a cold fast shutter in the
instrument. Given the options available for the 1RG reset-read
functions, it is now felt that no shutter is needed for NIC-FPS--the
detector can be made dark by plugs in the filter wheels or some other
arrangement in the optical path, obviating the need for an expensive
and technically challenging shutter. Astronomers who believe that a
fast shutter on this instrument is essential should contact Jon Morse.
********** Enabling new ports for instruments **********
Ed Turner & Bruce Gillespie: A discussion ensued on whether or not
it is a high priority to enable new instrument ports on the
telescope, along the lines of the original design for the telescope.
Having more than two instruments mounted on the telescope at the same
time enables fast (~2 minute) instrument changes. But each new port
needs to be fitted with a rotator and guider (for imaging
instruments) at a cost of ~$100k per port. Since we can do manual
instrument changes now in about 15 minutes, is it worth the cost of
the rotators and guiders, and the cost of constraining the design of
new instruments for use at side ports and Nasmyth? Although manual
instrument changes cost us of order a week/year of observing time,
the cost of enabling several ports is equivalent to a major share of
a new instrument, or other important capital improvement projects.
Jon Holtzman pointed out that having easy and fast access to several
instruments can actually induce observing inefficiency, as there
would be increased on-sky calibration requirements, and inexperienced
users could be tempted to thrash or joystick the telescope and
instruments without taking full advantage of better on-target
exposure time by not unnecessarily changing instruments. The
original operations concept for the 3.5-m was to not have an
Observing Specialist at the telescope, so multiple ports would have
been the only way to make remote instrument changes. Since we can
change instruments relatively quickly manually, is there a compelling
reason to enable one or more additional ports to enable even faster
instrument changes, and at what cost?
Although there was considerable discussion of this, it was decided
after a suggestion by Mike Shull to prepare a "white paper" with
cost-benefits tradeoffs on this topic. Ed and Bruce will see to this
and get something floated to the community shortly--a decision is
important in a timely way because NIC-FPS and the JHU NIR
spectrograph need their designs frozen soon on an assumption of which
mounting port(s) they will be used on. Jon Holtzman pointed out that
what we really need is a capable visible imager mounted on a side
port, possibly an upgraded SPIcam but in a compact and lightweight
package.
Readers of these minutes should forward any comments to Ed Turner,
Bruce Gillespie, and Jon Holtzman.
********** New grism for GRIM2 **********
Alan Uomoto has recently proposed replacing the grism in GRIM, which
is rarely used, with one that has lower resolution. If this were
done for very little cost and minimal risk to the instrument, it
would provide a limited but scientifically useful IR spectrographic
at APO, one that could be implemented in the coming months and enable
some new science. It would also be a prototype for some of the
development elements of the new IR spectrograph, e.g., semi-automatic
IR spectra data reduction. The group agreed that the concept has
merit, and asked Alan to write up a more detailed proposal.
********** Forest Fire risks **********
The recent well-publicized Penasco fire near Cloudcroft is
essentially over, and the risk of fires around APO continues to be
extremely high. We expect this unusually dry season to last into
July, when the summer monsoon rains usually begin.
********** Adler Planetarium program update **********
Ed and Bruce have discussed the status of the Adler public night
program which has been running on the 3.5-m for several years during
the fall through spring seasons. An hour of twilight time has been
allocated on Fridays once a month to Adler to use for public
demonstrations of remote observing and some science observations. It
was determined that the actual start of the observing relative to
sunset needs some tuning, and that the program would be more
effective if it ran for 90 minutes, the 30 minutes of post-twilight
time being booked to the Director's Discretionary time. This program
is in principle extensible to other ARC institutions, and a recent
"open-night" on the telescope arranged through the University of
Washington was highly successful. More on this topic from future
meetings.
The last meetings' minutes were approved.
The next meeting will be held at 11:30 AM EDT on June 10.
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<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
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--></style><title>APO 3.5m User's committee meeting,
05/13/02</title></head><body>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">Apache Point Observatory 3.5m User's Committee
Meeting</div>
<div align="center">May 13, 2002</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Attending: Bruce Gillespie, Ed Turner, Michael Strauss, Lew
Hobbs, Jon Holtzman, Rene Walterbos, Jon Morse, Alan Uomoto, Bruce
Balick, Mike Shull</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Absent: Chris Stubbs</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">********** Status of the DIS upgrade:
**********</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Ed Turner: Through the influence of the good offices of
Chris Stubbs, Marconi EEV was able to locate a Grade 0 (the best)
replacement chip for the blue side of DIS. We expect this new
chip to arrive this week and be installed next week with minimal, if
any, impact to scheduled DIS observing. If the replacement
detector is successfully installed, both sides of DIS will be operable
by about the 24th of May, including the improved blue throughput from
the blue dewar lens replacement with the proper AR coating. The
damaged chip is at EEV for evaluation, and if it can be repaired, it
will be returned and used as a spare.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">********** JHU Near-IR spectrograph workshop:
**********</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Alan Uomoto: The new APO infrared spectrograph design will be
presented in Baltimore on Tuesday, May 21, 2002, 10:30AM to 5:00PM at
the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy on the JHU Homewood
campus. The purpose is to confirm the technical and scientific goals
of the project and to perform a preliminary design review.
[Note: the latest information on this meeting with room number and
earlier ending time was just posted to apo35-general by Alan
Uomoto.]</div>
<div><br>
Reference information for the instrument is at:<br>
</div>
<div>http://annabel-lee.pha.jhu.edu/Irspec/RefBook/book1.html<br>
</div>
<div>ARC people are welcome (but JHU does not have travel funds for
general ARC attendees). Please reply to Alan Uomoto
<au@jhu.edu> if you plan to attend (including JHU people).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>If you can't make it but have comments, send them to Alan soon,
construction of the spectrograph will commence shortly after the
review.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Jon Morse: What have been comments so far regarding
resolution?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Alan Uomoto: R=4000 is the best that can be done with this
instrument, although the baseline was for R=1000 for quasars,
etc.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">********** Loaned and Special filters policy
**********</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Ed Turner: ARC and other astronomers have "loaned"
optical filters to APO over the years, and APO has accommodated the
occasional use of special and non-standard sized filters for its
instruments. Recent events have led to the following proposed
policy and procedure regarding standard and special filters on loan to
APO:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">Loaned and Special filters policy</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Filters of the appropriate size may be brought/mailed to APO for
use in SPIcam and DIS. Use of astronomer-furnished filters in
the other instruments is discouraged. Notify APO staff
(techstaff@apo.nmsu.edu) at least 2 weeks in advance if you intend to
bring and use standard-size filters in SPIcam or DIS. We require
that these filters be at APO at least two working days prior to their
planned use. For filters with non-matching shapes or sizes,
contact techstaff@apo.nmsu.edu at least one month in advance of their
planned use for an evaluation of feasibility.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Unless there is a compelling reason made in writing to the
Director, all loaned filters at APO will be made available to other
telescope users without first securing the owner's permission. A list
of the loaned filters will be kept on the APO website, with the
owner's name and contact information. If an astronomer wishes to
use one or more of these filters, it would be advisable to contact its
owner to ensure that the filter(s) will be at APO when needed.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>If a loaned filter is damaged or lost while at APO, the
observatory will assume responsibility for its replacement.
Filters will be fully insured by the owner when shipped to the site,
and filters will be fully insured by APO when they are shipped back to
the owner.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">********** No-Show policy **********</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Ed Turner, Bruce Gillespie: One of the problems with remote
PI observing at APO is that occasionally the remote observer doesn't
show up (in the virtual sense). This happens some 2 or 3 times a
year, and a recent occurrence has prompted discussion of formalizing a
policy and procedure for no-shows. In past instances of no-shows, we
have made a frantic and concerted effort to find substitute science
and/or engineering uses for the telescope. The purpose of the
policy is to ensure that very little usable telescope time goes
unused, following a set of relatively simple rules.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>[Director's note: Although how an institution's 3.5-m time
is used is to some extent the institution's responsibility, the
Director and Observatory are charged by the ARC Board of Governors to
make the most effective overall use of the facility. Remote
observers are expected to contact the observatory at least a day in
advance with setup requirements, and to log-on or call the observatory
staff at least a half-hour before their scheduled observing time
starts. This includes situations even where the weather *LOOKS*
hopeless.] </div>
<div><br></div>
<div>A first draft of this policy was discussed by the Users
Committee, and several points were made which have been incorporated
below:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">"No-Show" policy</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>If a scheduled remote observer does not log-in or notify APO by
at least 15 minutes before the beginning of their scheduled observing
time, he/she is defined as a "no-show" and the following
procedure and policies will be invoked in an hierarchical
manner:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The Observing Specialist will attempt to telephone the PI and/or
designated remote observers using only the phone numbers given in the
observing proposal. We will add an optional field in the
observing proposals for home/contact phone numbers for the PI and
observers. This allows us to avoid having to keep a rolodex of home
phone numbers for the ever-changing cast of remote observers.
We'll have to ensure that the home phone numbers are not accessible
through our public web server, however.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>If the remote observer fails to contact the site by 10 minutes
after the scheduled starting time or is not reachable by phone, the
following options are tried first:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>1) if the no-show is on 2nd half, the time is offered to the
first half observer</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>2) if the no-show is on 1st half, the time is offered to the 2nd
half observer<br>
</div>
<div>If these options do not work, the Observing Specialist will
attempt to reach the institutional Scheduler by phone only if the
program is for the first half of the night. We will need to get
the office and home numbers of the Schedulers. These will go in a
private phone list kept in the control room. The Scheduler will
be given the opportunity to designate another program to run on the
telescope, with a different observer (if possible), or in service
observing mode (if practical).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>If none of these options works, the default is to initiate some
specified backup science (service observing mode), engineering,
training, and/or PR programs.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>If the no-show observer "shows up" later during their
scheduled time, they will be told by the Observing Specialist that
they have forfeited their time to another science program (if one has
been started). If other kinds of observing has been substituted
(e.g., engineering), the now "late" observer will be given
the option of using the remaining time for their science
program.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>All of the scheduled time for a no-show will be booked against
that program ID and institution, regardless of the alternative use of
the telescope. The Observing Specialist will detail what happened in
the night log, and no other report of the no-show incident needs to be
made. The Director or designee will ensure that the
institutional Scheduler is made aware of the no-show incident.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>This policy assumes the no-show has a program with a half night
or more of telescope time. If the no-show is scheduled for a
block of time less than 1 hour, there really isn't more than about
10-15 minutes that can be usefully spent looking for people. For
these short programs, the Observing Specialist should try to contact
the PI or observers for at most 10 minutes starting 15 minutes before
the beginning of the scheduled block, then the PI or observer for the
previous/next program should be contacted and invited to
continue/start early. In this case, the no-show forfeits any
time remaining once a substitute science program has begun setup
and/or data acquisition.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">********** NIC-FPS report **********</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Jon Morse: The enhanced Rockwell 1RG detector is being
purchased, weekly telecons with the APO site engineering staff have
started to work the telescope/instrument interface issues, and a site
visit to APO is planned by the instrument group for June 13 to discuss
the mechanical interfaces face-to-face. One design issue that
has surfaced is whether or not to include a cold fast shutter in the
instrument. Given the options available for the 1RG reset-read
functions, it is now felt that no shutter is needed for NIC-FPS--the
detector can be made dark by plugs in the filter wheels or some other
arrangement in the optical path, obviating the need for an expensive
and technically challenging shutter. Astronomers who believe
that a fast shutter on this instrument is essential should contact Jon
Morse.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">********** Enabling new ports for instruments
**********</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Ed Turner & Bruce Gillespie: A discussion ensued on
whether or not it is a high priority to enable new instrument ports on
the telescope, along the lines of the original design for the
telescope. Having more than two instruments mounted on the
telescope at the same time enables fast (~2 minute) instrument
changes. But each new port needs to be fitted with a rotator and
guider (for imaging instruments) at a cost of ~$100k per port.
Since we can do manual instrument changes now in about 15 minutes, is
it worth the cost of the rotators and guiders, and the cost of
constraining the design of new instruments for use at side ports and
Nasmyth? Although manual instrument changes cost us of order a
week/year of observing time, the cost of enabling several ports is
equivalent to a major share of a new instrument, or other important
capital improvement projects. Jon Holtzman pointed out that
having easy and fast access to several instruments can actually induce
observing inefficiency, as there would be increased on-sky calibration
requirements, and inexperienced users could be tempted to thrash or
joystick the telescope and instruments without taking full advantage
of better on-target exposure time by not unnecessarily changing
instruments. The original operations concept for the 3.5-m was
to not have an Observing Specialist at the telescope, so multiple
ports would have been the only way to make remote instrument changes.
Since we can change instruments relatively quickly manually, is there
a compelling reason to enable one or more additional ports to enable
even faster instrument changes, and at what cost?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Although there was considerable discussion of this, it was
decided after a suggestion by Mike Shull to prepare a "white
paper" with cost-benefits tradeoffs on this topic. Ed and
Bruce will see to this and get something floated to the community
shortly--a decision is important in a timely way because NIC-FPS and
the JHU NIR spectrograph need their designs frozen soon on an
assumption of which mounting port(s) they will be used on. Jon
Holtzman pointed out that what we really need is a capable visible
imager mounted on a side port, possibly an upgraded SPIcam but in a
compact and lightweight package.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Readers of these minutes should forward any comments to Ed
Turner, Bruce Gillespie, and Jon Holtzman.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">********** New grism for GRIM2 **********</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Alan Uomoto has recently proposed replacing the grism in GRIM,
which is rarely used, with one that has lower resolution. If
this were done for very little cost and minimal risk to the
instrument, it would provide a limited but scientifically useful IR
spectrographic at APO, one that could be implemented in the coming
months and enable some new science. It would also be a prototype
for some of the development elements of the new IR spectrograph, e.g.,
semi-automatic IR spectra data reduction. The group agreed that
the concept has merit, and asked Alan to write up a more detailed
proposal.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">********** Forest Fire risks **********</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The recent well-publicized Penasco fire near Cloudcroft is
essentially over, and the risk of fires around APO continues to be
extremely high. We expect this unusually dry season to last into
July, when the summer monsoon rains usually begin.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align="center">********** Adler Planetarium program update
**********</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Ed and Bruce have discussed the status of the Adler public night
program which has been running on the 3.5-m for several years during
the fall through spring seasons. An hour of twilight time has
been allocated on Fridays once a month to Adler to use for public
demonstrations of remote observing and some science observations.
It was determined that the actual start of the observing relative to
sunset needs some tuning, and that the program would be more effective
if it ran for 90 minutes, the 30 minutes of post-twilight time being
booked to the Director's Discretionary time. This program is in
principle extensible to other ARC institutions, and a recent
"open-night" on the telescope arranged through the
University of Washington was highly successful. More on this
topic from future meetings.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div> The last meetings' minutes were approved.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div> The next meeting will be held at 11:30 AM EDT on June
10.</div>
<div><br></div>
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