Subject: APO 3.5m Shutdown Concluded/Science Ops resuming

From: Ed Turner

Submitted: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 11:40:56 -0400 (EDT)

Message number: 693 (previous: 690, next: 699 up: Index)

Science operations of the APO 3.5m will resume tonight with the previously 
scheduled programs (JH03 tonight and UC03 tomorrow night, Aug 25 and 26, 
respectively).

Although the telescope and its instruments are now considered to be 
operationaly and capable of doing science, there are some remaining "loose 
ends" from the shutdown as listed below:

1) The mechanism for automatic rotation of the tertiary is not functional, 
and the problem has not yet been fully diagnosed.  It is possible to 
rotate the tertiary manually, but this is arduous and slow.  Until the 
prolem is fixed, rotation of the tertiary during the night should be 
avoided if at all possible.

2) The NA2 guider is still at the vendor undergoing attempted repairs.  It 
should be possible to work around this problem for most observations, with 
the exception of long exposures with SPICam.

3) Due to the problem with the tertiary, the on-sky recommisioning 
(including pointing models and collimation) could not be "fine tuned" to 
the usual degree, and it will probably be necessary to devote some 
additional on-sky time to these tasks after repair of the tertiary 
auto-rotation mechanism.

Ed Turner



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