Subject: APO 3.5-m Users Committee minutes 12/20/04
From: Bruce Gillespie
Submitted: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 10:51:52 -0700
Message number: 885
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APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 12/20/04
Attending: Ed Turner, Suzanne Hawley, Michael Strauss, Russet
McMillan, Karl Glazebrook, Bruce Balick, Bruce Gillespie, Don Lamb, Jon
Holtzman
Absent: Al Harper, Don York, Rene Walterbos, Fred Hearty, Jim Green
Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie
**********************************
Observer auto-reminder system implemented:
Ed reported that APO has recently started sending automated reminders
to observers about their upcoming observing runs (see message 874 in
the apo35-general archive). He wants the Users Committee members to be
alert for any feedback about the system from users, e.g., is it too
much like SPAM, and is the 48 hour advance alert the correct warning
time for most programs (it may be too long an interval for an extended
observing program that uses several contiguous nights)? Ed suggested
that Suzanne poll the committee next meeting for comments.
**********************************
Upcoming Gamma-Ray Burst Targets-of-Opportunity programs:
With the successful launch of the Swift GRB satellite (Swift is not an
acronym: "The observatory is actually named after a small, nimble bird,
..." says the NASA website), at least three groups within ARC have
proposals and/or plans to mount fast-attack imaging and spectroscopic
observations of GRBs in the coming quarter. About four years ago, we
had set up a system and protocol for observing targets from alerts from
HETE and LINEAR, but the positional accuracies from these satellites
turned out not be be as good as hoped for, at least not for Karl
Glazebrook's echelle part of the APO observing. Don Lamb was able to
get several GRB observations at APO using UChicago time, and these were
arranged relatively informally, with hours/days lead time. In the past
year, these alerts have been used to trigger APO observations
relatively infrequently.
With Swift, things may be different. Swift alerts should be rapid and
with better pointing and V magnitude information. This perhaps
uniquely enables APO to quickly put large glass on these targets for
echelle spectra (if the target is bright enough), and/or get deep
near-IR photometry with NIC-FPS if the target is extremely reddened.
Proposals from several ARC teams have been received for next quarter,
and Suzanne stated that we want to see if there is a way to coordinate
these programs to maximize science efficiency while minimizing the
impact to the rest of the science programs on the 3.5-m telescope. Don
and Karl pointed out that the telescope has several unique advantages
for GRB work, including fast instrument change capability, the other
robotic ground-based telescopes chasing GRBs have much smaller
aperture, and we now have a state-of-the-art near-IR imager. The
details of the alert protocols, the frequency, and the lead time will
all be factors on how well the community will tolerate the interrupts.
Anything but rapid response might not allow the maximum science return
from the Swift alerts. Karl suggested that we make this an ARC "Key
Project." Don thinks that Swift may be hugely productive in Q1, and
that we should be aggressive and not miss out on the initial big
science opportunities. Jon Holtzman said this is a great opportunity
for our telescope, but there is a need for rapid publication of results
in order that the effort and disruption are felt to be worthwhile.
Bruce Balick thought we should go all-out during the first two quarters
of 2005.
Karl predicted that there will be ~100 bursts/year, and that 25-50 of
them will be observable at APO. Don thought that the number of bursts
that can be observed with the echelle is probably only 2-4 per quarter,
and for NIC-FPS, 10 per quarter. Russet pointed out that it will be
difficult, if not impossible, for the Observing Specialists to perform
service observing with NIC-FPS in January, and she feels it is
imperative that the CU instrument team be in the loop during all of Q1
for NIC-FPS observations. Suzanne said that during January, NIC-FPS
will only be available as a ToO or backup instrument during 21-30
January when the NIC-FPS observing block with CU support is scheduled.
We can't commit the instrument or the Observing Specialists in the
first three weeks of January. This is to protect the health and safety
of the instrument during commissioning and OS training. We will
evaluate the situation again at the end of January.
To explore the best way to implement an ARC-wide program for GRB
followup, Suzanne will ask the interested parties to put together a
plan for review. It should cover such things as how a GRB is
triggered, a decision tree for what observations are to be made, and a
discussion of data dissemination and payback of time to users whose
observations are interrupted. This plan should be prepared quickly so
that we can be ready to take advantage of the Swift opportunity. The
users committee will be updated at the next meeting. Members of the
committee who were not present are encouraged to communicate their
views to Suzanne and Bruce.
**********************************
Triplespec and UVirginia:
Suzanne reported on a visit to UVirginia by herself and our Triplespec
"Instrument Implementation Team." Suzanne, Mark Klaene, Craig Loomis,
and Alan Uomoto recently attended meetings at Charlottesville with the
instrument developers on design, fabrication, and operational issues.
Many technical issues were worked on, and there was a good dialog on
all feedback from earlier review comments. Things are going forward
well; we will review the proposed changes to the optical design that
has been proposed to better match our telescope. There is a phone
meeting planned for January and a face-to-face meeting at APO in April.
Suzanne also held largely productive discussions with Bob Rood about
potential UVa membership in ARC.
**********************************
Director Transition:
Ed Turner noted that he had been contacted by some users who were
wondering when the transition will occur. For the record, the official
transition date for Suzanne Hawley to become the next 3.5-m Director is
1 January 2005.
**********************************
NIC-FPS Commissioning
Russet McMillan and Bruce Gillespie reported that NIC-FPS commissioning
is going well. It's a "very nice instrument" that is easy to use and
already has a competent TUI remote interface. The instrument seems to
have a minor vacuum problem, and the Fabry-Perot etalon is not yet
working to specification and probably won't be usable in Q1. More
commissioning is scheduled during the remainder of December.
**********************************
SDSS-II NSF Proposal:
Bruce Gillespie and Michael Strauss mentioned that the NSF is planning
a panel review of the SDSS-II proposal in February.
**********************************
Last month's minutes were approved without comment.
Next phonecon will be on Monday, January 24, at 11:30 AM Eastern Time.
Note: Call-in details will be different because we'll be using a
commercial teleconference service.
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