APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 4/19/04 Attending: Ed Turner, Michael Strauss, Bruce Gillespie, John Bally, Fred Hearty, Cynthia Froning, Russet McMillan, Rene Walterbos, Jon Holtzman Absent: Don York, Bruce Balick, Karl Glazebrook, Al Harper Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie ********************************** Summer shutdown plans: Bruce Gillespie reported the planned dates and work list for the '04 summer shutdown. The planned start/finish dates are 28 June through 13 August. Work is planned for DIS and its slit viewer, realuminization of the 2ndary, tertiary mirror wiring improvements, primary mirror washing, and vacuum pumping of DIS and SPIcam. Also planned for late in the shutdown is the delivery of NIC-FPS to APO--Fred Hearty needs to contact Mark Klaene to coordinate the delivery and integration. The length of the shutdown is about what we usually take, but the work scope is a little lighter than in past years, in part because we have uncertain levels of manpower for the shutdown and that we want to avoid "hero mode" for the work. There is a possibility that the shutdown could end early, and what to do with the leftover time was discussed. The most popular options seemed to be to schedule low-priority provisional programs in the last week or so of the shutdown that could be cancelled if needed, or to give any contingency time to NIC-FPS for commissioning tests, if it were ready for on-sky use. Ed will decide how to allocate this provisional time when he makes the call for the next quarter proposals in early May. ********************************** NIC-FPS report: Fred Hearty and Cynthia Froning (NIC-FPS Program Manager) reported that the NIC-FPS mechanical systems are undergoing integration and testing, which is going well. The filter wheel assemblies and etalon mover are the main focus at the moment, and the cables (and spare cables) are being assembled. It is expected that the "bench" will be fully integrated in about a month, and that the detector will be joined to it shortly thereafter. Detector testing has been plagued by configuration problems, but they have recently taken an image with it in the lab. Delivery of NIC-FPS to APO is planned for 1 August. ********************************** DIS Blue noise gone?: Jon Holtzman said that through some recommendations and tests by various people, it appears that the low-level pattern noise in DIS Blue has been reduced about a factor of 10, making it virtually nonexistent. The key fix was in replacing the clock cable to the blue dewar. Jon said that this episode shows we have at least two bigger problems: Why did it take so long for us to discover that the blue camera had this noise--users of DIS should have noticed this months ago and alerted the observatory staff. Users need to be reminded that they have an obligation and duty to report anomalies they detect with the observatory systems. Also, Jon suggests that some kind of monitoring and trending program needs to be instituted to watch for these kinds of telescope and instrument performance degradations. The second problem is that the 3.5-m telescope is seriously shorthanded in expertise on instrumentation and electronics, owing to the recent departures of several key people at various 3.5-m consortium institutions. Bruce Gillespie made the point that the 3.5-m consortium institutions should consider this to be an "opportunity" for an in-house person (or persons) to get involved with electronics and instrumentation projects at APO. ********************************** Integral Field Spectrograph report: John Bally reported that he is revising the instrument concept to accommodate a larger lenslet scale, and that this requirement is driving some interesting, albeit challenging, design changes. He plans to update the white paper that describes the instrument in the next few weeks. No feedback has been received from the CFHT on their potential interest in such an instrument. ********************************** New Instrument Call for Proposals: Ed is preparing a CP for a new ARC instrument for the 3.5-m, which will have provisions for significant CIF funding support, plus an allowance of Director's Discretionary time for commissioning and science programs. The proposals would be due this summer, with a late summer decision likely. The issuance of the CP has been delayed, but will probably be launched within the next few weeks. ********************************** CorMASS is coming, last call: Bruce Gillespie again reminded the user community that the low-res NIR spectrograph CorMASS has arrived at APO, with commissioning runs scheduled for 3 - 7 May. If users are interested in any tests or science commissioning experiments during this run, they should contact Bruce Gillespie (gillespi@apo.nmsu.edu). More information on the capabilities of CorMass will be posted shortly to apo35general. ********************************** CIF projects: Bruce Gillespie reported that the design of the NA2 light baffle is done, and that fabrication is beginning at the Sunspot shop. Completion of the baffle is likely to take several months, and probably won't be installed in the telescope until after the summer shutdown. Design work for the new "top-end" continues, with a set of M2 requirements being posted by Jon Davis for review. ********************************** Split-nights discussion: The group discussed ways of mitigating the problem caused by having a short program scheduled at the beginning of a half-night, thus taking away the twilight calibration time, and in summer, leaving the residual half night program without much time to do useful observing. Various policies were discussed which had a variety of pros and cons, and no real consensus was reached. One idea offered was to limit each night, maybe only in the summer months, to a maximum of two programs per night, however long the programs are. If there were a short program at the beginning or end of the night, the other program gets the entire remainder of the night. This ensures that every program gets twilight for calibrations, but adds yet another scheduling constraint that will complicate scheduling. Ed will ponder the problem some more, and invites others to send him opinions and ideas. ********************************** 10Mb/sec Internet coming to APO?: Bruce Gillespie reported that we have been given US Forest Service permission to have a high-speed microwave internet system installed at APO, which if it works, would give us a tenfold increase in bandwidth at the site. It may take a few months to get the contract and hardware in place, and then there will be an evaluation period before we cut the cord to our current T1 service. ********************************** 10th anniversary celebration: There was a brief discussion of the 10th anniversary celebration, and the turnout and contributed science talks are looking to be fairly substantial. The deadline for making reservations is this week, but if people discover later that they can come, we will find a way to fit you in and get you accommodations. ********************************** Last month's minutes were approved without comment. Next phonecon will be on Monday, May 10, 2004, at 11:30 AM Eastern Time APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 774 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