Subject: Users Commitee meeting minutes 11/10/03

From: Bruce Gillespie

Submitted: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 16:07:08 -0700

Message number: 720 (previous: 719, next: 721 up: Index)

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APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 11/10/03

Attending:  Ed Turner, Michael Strauss, Bruce Gillespie, John Bally 
(replacing Mike Shull), Rene Walterbos, Al Harper, Jon Holtzman, 
Bruce Balick, Russet McMillan

Absent:  Karl Glazebrook, Don York, Jim Green


**********************************

General:  After many years of selfless and dedicated service, Michael 
Strauss has accepted our offer to retire from taking the minutes, and 
starting this month Bruce Gillespie has agreed to take over this 
task.  With great difficulty, we will strive to approach Michael's 
standards for turnaround speed and accuracy.

Also, we are experimenting with the Princeton teleconference system 
for this meeting.  It seemed to work quite adequately, so we will 
continue to use it for future meetings because it is considerably 
cheaper than the commercial AT&T teleconferencing service.


**********************************

GRIM2 Problems:  The "lost-quad" problem has returned, the second 
time in a about a month.  The site staff have exhausted their means 
of trouble-shooting this problem using component swapping, and Al 
Harper is working to set up a site visit by Yerkes engineer Dale 
Sandford to diagnose and hopefully solve this problem.  In the 
meantime, GRIM2 is unavailable for observing.  Fortunately, there is 
very little scheduled use of GRIM2 through the end of this year, and 
the scheduled users of the instrument have been notified.


**********************************

Board of Governors meeting preparations:  A couple of institutions 
have sent recent science highlight to Ed, and there is room for other 
institutions to do the same.  Rene Walterbos needs lists of 2003 APO 
3.5-m-based publications, and in particular he needs reports of 
student activities that involve the telescope, which we believe to be 
extensive.

A main topic for the Board meeting will be plans to acquire a NIR spectrograph.


**********************************

SPIcam Upgrade Proposal:  John Bally announced that he and Josh 
Wallender at CU are planning to design a "focal reducer" for SPIcam. 
The current thinking is to build a refractive (or possibly 
all-reflecting) optic that turns the telescope feed from f/10 to f/5, 
quadrupling the area of sky coverage, giving .28 arcsec/pixel 
sampling with no binning.  It is possible that the initial 
implementation of this upgrade would be for Nasmyth, and ultimately a 
repackaged design would be mounted on a corner port, incorporating 
its own guider, rotator, and tip-tilt.  There was some discussion 
about the advantages of tip-tilt efficacy over a medium-large field 
of view, but in general people were pretty enthusiastic about the 
general concept of making SPIcam a larger-field imager.  John Bally 
should try talking to Chris Stubbs and Jeff Morgan about this, which 
is similar to an earlier concept they were exploring for a wide-field 
camera.  Stray-light rejection may be a problem, unless there is a 
field stop at a pupil using the all-reflective focal reducer design. 
UWash engineering staff could be involved to help John with the 
design, especially in the recovery of as-built drawings of the 
current instrument.  Several people expressed interest in using such 
an upgraded SPIcam for synoptic and narrow-band imaging, and John 
Bally is encouraged to bring forward a proposal and design for doing 
so.  Is was mentioned that this upgrade is to go to a "medium-field" 
configuration, and is not really wide-field.  SDSS (and maybe the 
NMSU 1-meter) are also resources that we can use for wide-field 
science programs.


**********************************

CFH12K camera:  Speaking of wide-field imagers, the CFHT has recently 
announced the availability (for sale, or in trade for telescope time) 
of its recently retired 12kx8K prime focus imager, which has been 
replaced by the larger MegaCam.  If this instrument could be easily 
adapted for use on the 3.5-m at Nasmyth, it would have nearly ten 
times the sky coverage as SPIcam, although seriously over-sampled 
unless binning were used.  A description of CFH12K can be found at:

http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/Instruments/Imaging/CFH12K/

There seemed to be no reason not to explore this opportunity, 
although the "devil is in the details."  Ed and BruceG will continue 
the dialog with the CFHT.


**********************************

NIC-FPS Status:  John Bally reported that the dewar has passed some 
recent flexure testing, and the science-grade detector is in house. 
Plans include bringing the instrument to APO in the summer of 2004 
for engineering tests, with science commissioning to follow.


**********************************

Fill-in Program Proposal:  Don York has proposed providing APO with 
an observing program of echelle MK standards and ISM variability 
monitoring targets, which would be used as a fill-in program by the 
Observing Specialists when conditions are unsuitable (e.g., seriously 
non-photometric and/or bad seeing) for the primary scheduled science 
program and the scheduled observer has no other suitable backup 
program available.  This echelle fill-in program would only be 
invoked if the primary scheduled observer did not object.  The group 
thought this would be a good idea to try as an experiment (although 
it was not clear how much time in a year would be used this way, 
maybe only a few hours).  Don York should provide the Observing 
Specialists with a target list and observing instructions, after 
which the community would be informed about the experiment.  If it 
works out, we could solicit more of these kinds of fill-in programs, 
but probably only run one at a time, for simplicity.


**********************************

TUI (Telescope User Interface) Status:  There is much informal "beta" 
use of TUI for DIS observer as of late, especially by NMSU and UWash 
observers.  It seems to work quite well for DIS, but there are hard 
problems yet to solve for GRIM2 and the Echelle.  The most recent 
version of TUI uses a new "hub" so users need to download the latest 
version.  Some form of "release" plan will be developed shortly, 
hopefully by the developers, Russell Owen and Craig Loomis.

[Shortly after the telecon, I received the following from Russell Owen:

".... Also, I would very much like folks to start using the new TUI 
mailing lists that Craig set up. Anybody using TUI now should 
subscribe to the announcements mailing list (especially the folks who 
install the software).

Anybody who is interested in the future of TUI and willing to discuss 
features should join the discussion group. It would be *very* useful 
to get critical mass in the discussion mailing list -- I think the 
community would be happier with the final product.

.... I think users are generally happy with what we have implemented 
so far. But when I have some usability questions I often don't know 
who to talk to. Having a few names of users of various instruments, 
folks who are willing to talk to me occasionally would be very handy. 
It's not yet clear if the discussion mailing list will prove useful, 
whereas having a few names now would definitely be useful. So...might 
you spread a call for volunteers?"

The TUI mailing lists that Craig Loomis has set up are:

TUI-announce@apo.nmsu.edu	- _Low_ traffic announcements of new versions
				  and significant operational changes.
TUI-discuss@apo.nmsu.edu	- A forum for discussions, suggestions,
				  complaints.

   See http://mail.apo.nmsu.edu/mailman to subscribe. Only members can post.]


**********************************

Director's Search:  Rene and BruceB said that this will be discussed 
at the Board meeting in a couple of weeks.


**********************************

Last month's minutes were approved without comment.

Next meeting Monday, December 8, 11:30 AM Eastern Time


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<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
 --></style><title>Users Commitee meeting minutes
11/10/03</title></head><body>
<div align="center">APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 11/10/03</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Attending:&nbsp; Ed Turner, Michael Strauss, Bruce Gillespie,
John Bally (replacing Mike Shull), Rene Walterbos, Al Harper, Jon
Holtzman, Bruce Balick, Russet McMillan</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Absent:&nbsp; Karl Glazebrook, Don York, Jim Green</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>General</b>:&nbsp; After many years of selfless and dedicated
service, Michael Strauss has accepted our offer to retire from taking
the minutes, and starting this month Bruce Gillespie has agreed to
take over this task.&nbsp; With great difficulty, we will strive to
approach Michael's standards for turnaround speed and accuracy.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Also, we are experimenting with the Princeton teleconference
system for this meeting.&nbsp; It seemed to work quite adequately, so
we will continue to use it for future meetings because it is
considerably cheaper than the commercial AT&amp;T teleconferencing
service.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>GRIM2 Problems</b>:&nbsp; The &quot;lost-quad&quot; problem
has returned, the second time in a about a month.&nbsp; The site staff
have exhausted their means of trouble-shooting this problem using
component swapping, and Al Harper is working to set up a site visit by
Yerkes engineer Dale Sandford to diagnose and hopefully solve this
problem.&nbsp; In the meantime, GRIM2 is unavailable for observing.&nbsp;
Fortunately, there is very little scheduled use of GRIM2 through the
end of this year, and the scheduled users of the instrument have been
notified.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>Board of Governors meeting preparations</b>:&nbsp; A couple of
institutions have sent recent science highlight to Ed, and there is
room for other institutions to do the same.&nbsp; Rene Walterbos needs
lists of 2003 APO 3.5-m-based publications, and in particular he needs
reports of student activities that involve the telescope, which we
believe to be extensive.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>A main topic for the Board meeting will be plans to acquire a NIR
spectrograph.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>SPIcam Upgrade Proposal</b>:&nbsp; John Bally announced that
he and Josh Wallender at CU are planning to design a &quot;focal
reducer&quot; for SPIcam.&nbsp; The current thinking is to build a
refractive (or possibly all-reflecting) optic that turns the telescope
feed from f/10 to f/5, quadrupling the area of sky coverage, giving
.28 arcsec/pixel sampling with no binning.&nbsp; It is possible that
the initial implementation of this upgrade would be for Nasmyth, and
ultimately a repackaged design would be mounted on a corner port,
incorporating its own guider, rotator, and tip-tilt.&nbsp; There was
some discussion about the advantages of tip-tilt efficacy over a
medium-large field of view, but in general people were pretty
enthusiastic about the general concept of making SPIcam a larger-field
imager.&nbsp; John Bally should try talking to Chris Stubbs and Jeff
Morgan about this, which is similar to an earlier concept they were
exploring for a wide-field camera.&nbsp; Stray-light rejection may be
a problem, unless there is a field stop at a pupil using the
all-reflective focal reducer design.&nbsp; UWash engineering staff
could be involved to help John with the design, especially in the
recovery of as-built drawings of the current instrument.&nbsp; Several
people expressed interest in using such an upgraded SPIcam for
synoptic and narrow-band imaging, and John Bally is encouraged to
bring forward a proposal and design for doing so.&nbsp; Is was
mentioned that this upgrade is to go to a &quot;medium-field&quot;
configuration, and is not really wide-field.&nbsp; SDSS (and maybe the
NMSU 1-meter) are also resources that we can use for wide-field
science programs.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>CFH12K camera</b>:&nbsp; Speaking of wide-field imagers, the
CFHT has recently announced the availability (for sale, or in trade
for telescope time) of its recently retired 12kx8K prime focus imager,
which has been replaced by the larger MegaCam.&nbsp; If this
instrument could be easily adapted for use on the 3.5-m at Nasmyth, it
would have nearly ten times the sky coverage as SPIcam, although
seriously over-sampled unless binning were used.&nbsp; A description
of CFH12K can be found at:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div
align="center">http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/Instruments/Imaging/CFH12K/</div
>
<div align="center">&nbsp;</div>
<div>There seemed to be no reason not to explore this opportunity,
although the &quot;devil is in the details.&quot;&nbsp; Ed and BruceG
will continue the dialog with the CFHT.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>NIC-FPS Status</b>:&nbsp; John Bally reported that the dewar
has passed some recent flexure testing, and the science-grade detector
is in house.&nbsp; Plans include bringing the instrument to APO in the
summer of 2004 for engineering tests, with science commissioning to
follow.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>Fill-in Program Proposal</b>:&nbsp; Don York has proposed
providing APO with an observing program of echelle MK standards and
ISM variability monitoring targets, which would be used as a fill-in
program by the Observing Specialists when conditions are unsuitable
(e.g., seriously non-photometric and/or bad seeing) for the primary
scheduled science program and the scheduled observer has no other
suitable backup program available.&nbsp; This echelle fill-in program
would only be invoked if the primary scheduled observer did not
object.&nbsp; The group thought this would be a good idea to try as an
experiment (although it was not clear how much time in a year would be
used this way, maybe only a few hours).&nbsp; Don York should provide
the Observing Specialists with a target list and observing
instructions, after which the community would be informed about the
experiment.&nbsp; If it works out, we could solicit more of these
kinds of fill-in programs, but probably only run one at a time, for
simplicity.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>TUI (Telescope User Interface) Status</b>:&nbsp; There is much
informal &quot;beta&quot; use of TUI for DIS observer as of late,
especially by NMSU and UWash observers.&nbsp; It seems to work quite
well for DIS, but there are hard problems yet to solve for GRIM2 and
the Echelle.&nbsp; The most recent version of TUI uses a new
&quot;hub&quot; so users need to download the latest version.&nbsp;
Some form of &quot;release&quot; plan will be developed shortly,
hopefully by the developers, Russell Owen and Craig Loomis.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>[Shortly after the telecon, I received the following from Russell
Owen:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>&quot;.... Also, I would very much like folks to start using the
new TUI mailing lists that Craig set up. Anybody using TUI now should
subscribe to the announcements mailing list (especially the folks who
install the software).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Anybody who is interested in the future of TUI and willing to
discuss features should join the discussion group. It would be *very*
useful to get critical mass in the discussion mailing list -- I think
the community would be happier with the final product.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>.... I think users are generally happy with what we have
implemented so far. But when I have some usability questions I often
don't know who to talk to. Having a few names of users of various
instruments, folks who are willing to talk to me occasionally would be
very handy. It's not yet clear if the discussion mailing list will
prove useful, whereas having a few names now would definitely be
useful. So...might you spread a call for volunteers?&quot;</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The TUI mailing lists that Craig Loomis has set up are:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>TUI-announce@apo.nmsu.edu<x-tab>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</x-tab>- _Low_ traffic announcements of new versions<br>
<x-tab>&nbsp;&nbsp;
</x-tab><x-tab>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</x-tab><x-tab>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</x-tab><x-tab>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </x-tab>&nbsp;
and significant operational changes.<br>
TUI-discuss@apo.nmsu.edu<x-tab>&nbsp; </x-tab>- A forum for
discussions, suggestions,<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><x-tab>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</x-tab><x-tab>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
</x-tab><x-tab>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </x-tab>&nbsp;
complaints.<br>
</div>
<div>&nbsp; See http://mail.apo.nmsu.edu/mailman to subscribe. Only
members can post.]</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><b><br></b></div>
<div><b>Director's Search</b>:&nbsp; Rene and BruceB said that this
will be discussed at the Board meeting in a couple of weeks.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>**********************************</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Last month's minutes were approved without comment.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Next meeting Monday, December 8, 11:30 AM Eastern Time</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
</body>
</html>
--============_-1143616866==_ma============--

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