Subject: APO 3.5-m Users Committee minutes 11/28/05
From: Bruce Gillespie
Submitted: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 05:15:25 -0700
Message number: 938
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APO 3.5-m Users Committee Phonecon, 11/28/05
Attending: Suzanne Hawley, Jill Knapp (for Michael Strauss), Remy
Indebetouw (for UVa), John Bally, Rene Walterbos, Bruce Balick, Bruce
Gillespie
Absent: Don York, Jon Holtzman, Karl Glazebrook, Al Harper, Russet
McMillan
Minutes taken by Bruce Gillespie
**********************************
User feedback, comments from Institutional representatives:
Princeton (Jill Knapp, for Michael Strauss)--Jill reported she had
heard of no feedback from users.
Colorado (John Bally)--John said his users had one issue. It appears
that DIS spectra may be out of focus. Rene added that there is still
the issue of scattered light in the blue channel.
ACTION: Suzanne and BruceG will discuss this in the upcoming weekly
operations telecon.
NMSU (Rene Walterbos)--Rene reiterated the need to address the DIS
focus and scattered light issues.
Johns Hopkins--no report given.
Chicago--no report given.
UWashington (Bruce Balick)--BruceB said he had heard no input from
users. He said there is anticipation at UW of the forthcoming report
from the Futures Committee. Suzanne added that there is engineering
time next week that will address some of the ongoing engineering issues.
Univ. of Virginia (Remy Indebetouw)--Remy said he hadn't heard any
user feedback.
**********************************
Board of Governors meeting:
Rene stated that it was a good meeting; the requested budgets were
approved, and Ed Turner was elected as the incoming Board
Chairperson, the Executive Council of the SDSS-II Advisory Council
was formed, and there was an interim report from the Futures
Committee. He also said that he had finished compiling the
publications/theses list for the 3.5-m, which shows there were more
papers/theses in 2005 than in 2004. Suzanne added that she also
thought it was a successful meeting, and in particular she was
pleased that the Board approved the UVa buy-in and the share
adjustments that enable CU to double its share.
**********************************
Town Meeting summary:
Suzanne announced that all the ARC institutions had been personally
visited by herself and BruceG during the past year, as part of
Suzanne's orientation during her first year as 3.5-m Director. This
afforded an opportunity for the 3.5-m users to hold direct
discussions with us on telescope, instrument, and operational
topics. One of the common topics heard from users at several
institutions is the need to improve site user information. Within
the manpower limitations we have, user information has been given a
higher priority.
Suzanne feels these meetings were very productive, and she thanks the
individuals who participated and/or hosted the visits. BruceG
mentioned that we don't intend to do this much traveling in future
years, but that we would try to find opportunities to return to the
ARC institutions, perhaps at a rate of ~one per year.
**********************************
Discussion of telescope/instruments report:
BruceG summarized highlights from the report (see below).
*************************
3.5-m Telescope, Instruments, and CIF Projects Highlights,
10/14 through 11/22/05
Bruce Gillespie
0) Overview
This period saw effort expended in preparations for the annual Board
of Governors meeting and planning for 2006, plus various work related
to some instrument and telescope problems. The unusually good
weather for this time of year was largely well used for observing.
1) Telescope
In mid-October, it was discovered that the center-post support of the
tertiary mirror had come unbonded from the glass. The telescope was
shut down and the mirror and supports were removed. There was minor
damage to the glass on the back surfaces of the mirror, which we were
fortuitously able to have repaired quickly at the optical shop at the
White Sands Missile Range. The support was rebonded to the mirror
and telescope was brought back in service with only six nights of
observing time lost. The cause of the glue failure is unknown, but
is suspected to be due to age and/or possibly a defective bonding
joint which failed.
In November, the telescope developed small tracking oscillations that
were determined to be related to the azimuth direct-drive boxes.
These were removed and serviced, with the telescope returned to an
operational state, with minimal down time. Also, the NA2 rotator
bearing and mounts were serviced during engineering time, and the
rotator performance has been improved, although one rotator motor
overcurrent event was recently observed. At the moment, the
telescope is performing nominally.
2) Instruments
o NIC-FPS: The vacuum-leak problem in the NIC-FPS dewar
persists. CU engineers came to APO, and a new LN2 fill gasket was
installed which seemed, at first, to solve the problem. But in
subsequent use the vacuum-leak problem returned and the instrument
was taken out of service. Further testing and repairs are currently
in progress.
o CorMASS: The "flip mirror" became intermittent and UVa staff
came to APO to effect repairs. The instrument appears to be working
normally at this time.
3) Engineering and CIF projects
Some progress was made on assembling the new drive boxes, and on
analysis and design of the new top-end components. Work was slowed
somewhat by manpower limitations due to telescope problems and
vacation leave.
4) Miscellaneous
4th Observing Specialist position recruitment continued; three
candidates were interviewed. A hiring decision is expected shortly.
**********************************
Triplespec review:
Suzanne announced that we are about to hold a final design review for
the UVa NIR spectrograph called Triplespec. The review team is
headed by Alan Uomoto, and the review will be held at the Sunspot
Visitor Center 6-7 December. In addition to APO staff, Steve Smee
(JHU), Tom O'Brien (OSU), Al Harper (UC), Fred Hearty and Stephane
Beland (CU), and Craig Loomis (PU) plan to participate. Remy
reported that the review preparations are going well; everything is
just about ready to go.
**********************************
CorMASS, APOLLO, GRB updates:
BruceG said that CorMASS is at APO in working condition, and we
expect it to remain available for users (in "attended-service mode")
for the foreseeable future. APOLLO had success in getting return
lunar photons during their November run. Suzanne reported that the
GRB alert program has not been implemented recently, largely due to
NIC-FPS being down because of its vacuum problems.
**********************************
3.5-m data access, security:
When TUI was launched earlier this year, various firewall problems
caused numerous problems with data transfers between APO and the ARC
institutions. A website transfer system was implemented to get
around this problem, but this solution inadvertently created a
situation where all the 3.5-m data could be accessed publicly. The
web-based data-transfer system has since been reverted to a more
secure mechanism, while the ftp protocol remains the most commonly
used by users anyway. But this incident has raised some issues, such
as: Do we care if our data is available public (probably yes)? Do
we care if ARC users have access to data not from their own
observations? Should we allow public access to our data (or a
catalog) after some TBD proprietary period? After some discussion,
it was decided that the Users Committee members should poll their
respective users:
ACTION: Users Committee members should poll their users to ask if
the the present data distribution/security systems at APO are
adequate, and if not, why.
ACTION: Users Committee members should poll their users to ask if we
should permanently archive all 3.5-m data, and possibly make it
available to the public, and if so, why.
**********************************
Open actions from previous meetings:
ACTION: Once we collect the the names of the designated
institutional systems administrators, BruceG will have them listed on
the APO web pages for reference. STATUS: will be completed in
December.
ACTION: BruceG will write a paragraph about the importance of having
back-up programs, to be added to the e-mail automated message we send
observers prior to their runs. STATUS: will be completed in December.
**********************************
Next Users Committee phonecon will be on Monday, 23 January, 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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