APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 9/19/05 Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Michael Strauss, Al Harper, Karl Glazebrook, Bruce Gillespie, John Bally, Rene Walterbos, Matt Nelson (representing UVa as an observer), Jon Holtzman Absent: Russet McMillan, Bruce Balick, Don York, Fred Hearty Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie ********************************** User feedback, comments from Institutional representatives: Princeton (Michael Strauss)--Michael had nothing much to report from the users; his users seem "happy". UChicago (Al Harper)--Al had nothing to report from his users, but said he's interested in hearing about NIC-FPS. He had nothing to say about feedback from the Chicago GRB team members. Suzanne thanked him for his help in getting the grism salvaged from GRIM-I, which is now installed in NIC-FPS. Colorado (John Bally)--John also said he wanted to hear the latest about NIC-FPS. He mentioned that he's planning to bring a large group of students to APO shortly. NMSU (Jon Holtzman)--Jon reported that he too recently led a student visit to APO, and an excellent time was had by all. Rene reported that he has used TUI and thinks it is great, and that slit-view guiding is great. Now we need to implement autofocus. His DIS science data is OK, but the red fringing is still problematic. There followed a group discussion of the new deep-depletion red chip that has recently been ordered for DIS to help with this problem. Johns Hopkins (Karl Glazebrook)--Karl said that he's been educating users at JHU about our GRB program, otherwise he didn't have anything to report. UWashington (Suzanne Hawley)--Suzanne mentioned that she recently held a 3.5-m users 'town meeting' in Seattle, in conjunction with the recent ARC Futures Committee meeting, and that she recently returned from a very successful observing trip at APO with her grad students. ********************************** Discussion of telescope/instruments report: BruceG summarized highlights from the report (see below). There was group discussion about the APOLLO lunar laser ranging project, and Bruce pointed out that there is a link to this project on the APO home page, which goes to http://physics.ucsd.edu/%7Etmurphy/apollo/ apollo.html. Tom Murphy, the APOLLO PI, has an interesting powerpoint presentation describing the project and its science goals that was recently shown to the ARC Futures Committee during the meeting in Seattle--contact Tom or BruceG if you would like to see it. In Q4, APOLLO operations are regularly scheduled. Suzanne pointed out that we're doing this using DD time 2-3 half-nights per quarter, with the balance being allocated from UW time. Most APOLLO time is generally done in partial half-nights, like the lens monitoring program of Ed Turner's, and usually runs during the evening and morning twilights and sometimes at midnight. Tom Murphy has agreed to help fund an APO position for a full-time 4th Observing Specialist, who will work part time on APOLLO. Bruce mentioned that TUI has become nearly universally used, and Suzanne said that Remark will be retired in Q4 [ACTION: Users Committee members need to inform their users that any remaining Remark holdouts must notify Suzanne and explain why they cannot migrate to TUI]. Jon Holtzman gave an overview of the planned DIS upgrades, which are to address getting better gratings, improving UV throughput, shifting the dichroic split, and replacing the red chip to reduce fringing. [Below is the monthly telescope/instrument attachment submitted to the committee prior to the meeting]: 3.5-m Telescope, Instruments, and CIF Projects Highlights, 6/16 through 9/15/05 Bruce Gillespie 0) Overview Much of the period covered was spent conducting summer engineering work on the telescope and instruments. Between the shutdowns, scheduled observing was successful for roughly half the scheduled nights; the summer monsoon weather was unusually late in coming this year, affording substantial on-sky time for science during a season that the telescope is traditionally not used during more extended shutdowns. For a variety of reasons, we scheduled three smaller shutdowns this year instead of one large one. Other highlights include the upgrade of NIC-FPS (done in Boulder), which was returned to APO this past week; and the first "lase" to the moon of the APOLLO lunar laser ranging system. Also, we made the transition to nearly full use of the new remote observing software, TUI. 1) Telescope o The problems encountered in the previous period with the enclosure rotation servo appear to have been resolved, for now, by extensive troubleshooting and replacement of several key components. Other shutdown highlights are given below. There have been a few occurrences of NA2 instrument rotator over-current events during the latter part of this reporting period, which are still under investigation. 2) Instruments o The annual vacuum pumping of the SPIcam and DIS cryo dewars was accomplished; o The upgrade of echelle spectrograph instrument control computer was completed; o NIC-FPS was worked on at CU, and several improvements were made. The vacuum and filter-wheel problems were addressed, a NIR grism (salvaged by UC from GRIM-I) was installed, and various improvements were made to improve noise and stability issues in the NIC-FPS detector system. The instrument is presently undergoing some additional engineering work at the site, prior to on-sky re- certification tests. [Note added 9/22: On-sky testing was completed 9/20, and NIC-FPS was released for science observing last night, 9/21. All systems appeared to work well.] 3) Engineering and CIF projects o Telescope enclosure drive motors and brake assemblies refurbished; o Bearing lubrication and azimuth cone "moat" seal annual service performed; o Enclosure shutter bearings serviced/replaced; o Realuminized tertiary and washed primary mirrors; o Made substantial progress on installation of new limit switches for tertiary mirror; o Refurbished and serviced telescope drive boxes and instrument rotator; o Released baseline version of TUI; o Ordered new deep-depletion device detector for DIS red camera, and had one pair of DIS gratings measured at JHU; o More design and test work accomplished for "new top-end". 4) Miscellaneous o Installed new UPS system in computer room (shared with SDSS-II). ********************************** New partners update: Rene said that a proposal for ARC partner share adjustments (an increase in the CU share and induction of UVa into ARC) has been agreed to in principle by the relevant parties. Rene feels that the proposed evolution will make for a stronger consortium and better opportunities for new and/or improved instrumentation on the telescope. ********************************** Futures Committee (and subgroups) update: Suzanne said that the recent ARC Futures Committee meeting, held in Seattle, was a good one. Most of this group's charge is to make plans for ARC and APO post-2008, and the committee is drafting a report for distribution to the user community. Sub-groups of the committee were formed to explore interests in exo-planet research, near-IR spectroscopy with the 2.5-m, and IFU visible spectroscopy with the 2.5-m. [ACTION: BruceG agreed to send to the Users Committee the compositions of these sub-groups.] Futures Committee discussion about the 3.5-m centered on different operational modes, collaborations with other facilities, future instrumentation needs, and general science direction for the telescope. ********************************** CorMASS in Q4: Suzanne mentioned that she has given DD time in Q4 to CorMASS in mid- October during which John Wilson will re-commission the instrument and then take UVa and ARC science observations, mainly in service mode. CorMASS will probably remain at APO for the foreseeable future, probably until Triplespec is delivered sometime later next year. ********************************** SNe and GRB observing programs: Suzanne reminded us that Q4 is SNe time for SDSS-II, and follow-up spectroscopy with the 3.5-m is scheduled on 25 half-nights during the quarter. We have already started supporting this in Q3, and the big impact begins in October. Suzanne asked the Users Committee members for feedback from their 3.5-m users, mainly those not involved in the SNe follow-up program. Scheduling this was challenging, but it turned out to be seemingly reasonable. Let us know if the SNe program is impacting other science programs in significant ways. The GRB ToO program has been relatively quiet in the past weeks. Now, we believe that GRB alerts that will pre-empt 3.5-m observing could be on the increase, now that NIC-FPS is back and because of a recent high-z GRB observation. We have published the Q2 GRB reports at a blind URL. [ACTION: BruceG will send this URL to the Users Committee to share with their users.] The program ran well in Q1 and Q2, and is being continued through Q4. The alert process and procedures are not yet automated, however. ********************************** ARC Board meeting preps: Suzanne and Rene reminded the committee members that now is time that we need you to send us your science highlights (brief text, figures, images) for inclusion in the annual report to the Board. [ACTION: Send these to Suzanne and BruceG not later than 1 November, and preferably sooner, so that your institution will be fairly represented in the report. Also, send all your 3.5-m-based publications and theses during the past twelve months to Rene Walterbos, also not later than 1 November.] ********************************** Triplespec review: Suzanne announced that a final design review for the UVa NIR Spectrograph, Triplespec, will be held at APO 6-7 December. Both ARC and 'external' reviewers have been engaged to participate in the review. For those interested in the current design of the instrument, see http://www.astro.virginia.edu/research/ instrumentation/cormass2.html ********************************** Actions from last meeting: Here are the action items and discussion from last June's meeting: ACTION: All committee members should identify who their local systems administrator (i.e. the person who would be in charge of installing TUI and providing information on it to users) is so we can contact them. Please send the name and contact information to Bruce Gillespie (gillespi at apo.nmsu.edu)--Status: still open. ACTION: NMSU grad student, Pey-Lian Lim, wants to know if there is a tutorial for using the echelle with TUI. There is user information about TUI in general, but if an instrument-specific tutorial is needed, it might be possible that Pey-Lian could help write it, since she is a frequent echelle user. BruceG will talk to Jon Holtzman (Pey-Lian's advisor) about this--Status: Bruce has discussed this Jon Holtzman, and a plan is in the works. ACTION: Suzanne asked if NAIC will satisfy Nancy [Chanover]'s needs for planetary observations, in lieu of certain special filters that were not possible to fit into NIC-FPS. Fred said he thought that some of the filters and short-exposure modes in NIC-FPS do fit the bill for planetary work, but he agreed to talk to Nancy to be sure-- Status: uncertain. ACTION: [Suzanne] will decide by 1 August if the new top end will be ready for installation during October bright time--Status: The new top end installation will be scheduled for no sooner than next spring or summer. ********************************** Next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday, 17 Oct., at 8:30 AM Pacific Time. Agenda and other materials will be sent to the committee members during the preceding week. 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