APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 11/22/04 Attending: Ed Turner, Suzanne Hawley, Michael Strauss, Russet McMillan, Karl Glazebrook, Bruce Balick, Bruce Gillespie, John Bally Absent: Al Harper, Jon Holtzman, Don York, Rene Walterbos, Jim Green Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie ********************************** Highlights of Board of Governors, Futures Committee meetings Rather than go through the available 3.5-m Annual Report in detail, Ed and Suzanne listed the highlights: [see downloadable pdf file at http://www.apo.nmsu.edu/Site/ARCAnnlReports/default.html] o main concern was continued loss of key technical people within the ARC institutions o good news was that science highlights in past year show more richness and diversity than in past o also good news that NIC-FPS was delivered and is being commissioned, very nearly on schedule o plus good news that Suzanne Hawley was selected and has agreed to serve as new 3.5-m Director Suzanne descibed her plans for 2005 (cf. pp. 38-39 in Annual Report). Under Plans and Issues, she emphasized the shortfall of on- and off-site technical support likely to be manifest next year. This is somewhat aggravated by the uncertainties of SDSS-II which will not likely be resolved until sometime in 2005. The identification of new technical talent will be a high priority, both in telescope and instrumentation support areas. The focus of CIF spending will be on image quality, optics safety, and instrumentation improvements. Planned improvements to DIS will include new gratings, UV throughput, and fixing the dichroic split problem, all subject to time and money constraints. Significant funding will be devoted to the "new top-end" project, with APO and Washington staff leading the effort to improve image stability and enhance mirror safety. The plans for the annual engineering shutdown are being worked, with an eye toward better utilization of manpower (e.g., avoiding having engineers working on both the 3.5-m and SDSS telescopes at the same time). On the University of Virginia front, a technical proposal was received from UVa to build a near-IR medium-resolution spectrograph for APO, called Triplespec. This proposal was forwarded to several "friends" of APO for feasibility review, and favorable comments and constructive recommendations were received and forwarded back to John Wilson and Mike Skrutskie at UVa. John and Mike presented their proposal to the Futures Committee, and overall there is a strong technical consensus to proceed. Suzanne is forming an Instrument Implementation Team to work with UVa; plans are being drawn to have the team visit UVa next month. On the issue of possible UVa partnership in ARC, it appears that the scientists of both ARC and UVa are largely eager over the prospects of UVa membership in ARC. The administrative processes and money issues will be challenges. Michael asked how much of a share are we considering. Suzanne said 10% is being discussed, and this appears not to be a problem finding that much of an allocation from within the existing ARC partners. She mentioned that the ARC Board established a committee (Mike Shull, Rene Walterbos, Ron Irving) to help her in the continuing discussions with UVa. For 2005 CIF planning, Suzanne reiterated that she wants us to do some long-standing DIS upgrades, since DIS is the majority-use instrument on the telescope. This would include new gratings (better matched to the new detectors), fix the UV-throughput problem, and fix the dichroic split problem. These would be done in serial order, as funds allowed. Also, the new top-end project will be a high priority, with completion hoped for by the summer shutdown. Another resource that is needed is instrument engineering expertise--whether this become a new site hire or provided by other means is TBD. Rounding out the list of CIF projects are TUI completion, spare drive boxes, new drive controllers/servos, and contingency held for NIC-FPS, Triplespec, and operations in the event of no SDSS-II. ********************************** Telescope twilight scheduling: Suzanne will institute a new scheduling policy effective starting Q1 next year. Telescope time will be allocated and scheduled starting at sunset and ending at sunrise, instead of the 12-degree twilights that have been in use for several years. The reasons for this change include: o prevents confusion on when astronomers have control of the telescope o encourages users to take more time for calibrations o promotes use of scientifically productive twilight time for near-IR instruments ********************************** High-speed photometer proposal: Suzanne report that Anjum Mukadam and her collaborators have submitted NSF and ATI proposals for full funding of this instrument. If funded, the instrument will become a "visiting" instrument at the 3.5-m. We should know in a few months if the project is funded or not. ********************************** Huzzas to Ed Turner: Bruce Balick noted the Board of Governors gave Ed Turner a resounding round of applause and appreciation for his service to ARC and its community over the past decade. On behalf of the Users Committee, he wants it noted for the record how much the committee members have appreciated his inspired leadership. ********************************** NIC-FPS Commissioning Russet McMillan has been working with the NIC-FPS team at APO the past few nights. She reported that the early commissioning is going very smoothly, the instrument and detector look "beautiful, with gorgeous image quality." The 60 kHz noise is gone. Weather permitting, some of the shared-risk commissioning science has been and will be undertaken. So far, things look good for initial science operations to begin as planned in Q1/Q2. The TUI interface to the instrument is largely working (there is no Remark user interface). In Q1/05, NIC-FPS will be "campaign"-scheduled for one solid week each bright period for each of the three months in the quarter, assuming there's enough demand. This block scheduling is being used to ensure that the NIC-FPS engineers can be available to help new observers. ********************************** GRIM2: Note the recent announcement by Suzanne regarding the future of GRIM2: From: slh@astro.washington.edu Subject: Plans for GRIM2 Date: November 9, 2004 12:57:53 PM MST To: apo35-general@astro.princeton.edu Reply-To: slh@astro.washington.edu Pending the successful commissioning of NICFPS, we are beginning to plan for the retirement of GRIM2. This message is to let people know that GRIM2 will still be available in "normal" operation (one quadrant is still bad) during Q1 2005. Users should take advantage of having both GRIM2 and NICFPS operational in order to obtain cross-calibration data in preparation for transferring programs to NICFPS. Depending on the demand for GRIM2 we will consider retiring GRIM2 after Q1 2005. If you anticipate needing GRIM2 during or after Q2 2005, please let us know now so that we can make an informed plan for its retirement. Suzanne Hawley Bruce Gillespie [Note added here: User Committee members are encouraged to make sure their users provide any feedback to Suzanne ASAP. Note that there are a few somewhat specialized GRIM2 filters that are not provided with NIC-FPS.] ********************************** Futures Committee note: Suzanne noted that the Futures Committee has met thrice already and plans a few more face-to-face meetings through next year. Although chartered to consider issues in 2008 and beyond, many current and near-term issues are discussed, much in the same way as the Users Committee does. Although some of the Futures and Users Committee institutional representatives are the same person, in some cases they're not. Suzanne considers it important for the Futures and Users Committee members at each institution, if they're not the same person, have frequent discussions on the present and future issues facing the telescope, and try to "get on the same page." ********************************** Last month's minutes were approved without comment. Next phonecon will be on Monday, December 20, 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 857 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