uc:uc20230905_september_5_2023
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uc:uc20230905_september_5_2023 [2023/09/05 15:51] nchanove |
uc:uc20230905_september_5_2023 [2023/09/06 02:18] (current) nchanove |
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| - | Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), | + | Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), |
| === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === | === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === | ||
| - | * BYU - | + | * BYU - nothing to report |
| - | * FGCU - | + | * FGCU - no report |
| - | * Wyoming - | + | * Wyoming - nothing to report |
| - | * Oklahoma - | + | * Oklahoma - due to the failure of Agile some OU users are exploring the use of ARCTIC for high cadence photometry. Russet performed some speed tests of various readout modes and windowing with ARCTIC and they seem promising (see results [[arctic: |
| - | * NAPG - | + | * NAPG - no report |
| - | * Seattle - | + | * Seattle - Joanne' |
| - | * Georgia State - | + | * Georgia State - nothing to report |
| - | * Washington - | + | * Washington - nothing to report (by email) |
| - | * Colorado - | + | * Colorado - no report |
| - | * UVa - | + | * UVa - nothing to report |
| - | * JHU - | + | * JHU - nothing to report |
| - | * NMSU - | + | * NMSU - Moire has a teaching conflict this semester so Eric Nielsen will continue as the NMSU UC rep for a few more months. |
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| - | === Additional telescope and instrument discussion === | + | === Additional telescope and instrument discussion, shutdown summary |
| - | xxx | + | It has been a very busy, exciting, and stressful 2 months! The 3.5m primary mirror was successfully recoated at Lowell Observatory in the chamber at the Discovery Channel Telescope. We will distribute the data regarding the new coating performance once they have been fully reduced. |
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| + | September is another busy month with the DSSI team on site, the SU collaborators visiting this week, and the SDSS coding workshop here later this month. | ||
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| + | Following a successful summer shutdown the 3.5m telescope is back in operations. | ||
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| + | Prior to summer shutdown we had a failure of the rotation mechanism for the tertiary mirror. The problem was traced to a high resolution encoder; a replacement encoder was ordered and is now being tested, and we hope to try it on the telescope tomorrow. Once it is functional we will work on defining the upgrade path to bring that entire system to newer technology. Bill is still fine-tuning the telescope balance following the removal of the LANL instrument. | ||
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| + | Agile is still down and it is not clear if/when it can be repaired. Users may wish to try ARCTIC for high speed imaging. As mentioned above in the OU report, Russet performed some speed tests of various readout modes and windowing with ARCTIC and they seem promising (see results [[arctic: | ||
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| + | Other remaining engineering tasks include examining the ARCTIC diffuser rotation mechanism, which is not currently working, and identifying a fix for the failed filter wheel in ARCSAT. Jack recently tested out PlanetCam, his high-speed imaging camera, on the 0.5m. | ||
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| + | Regarding the data taken to measure improvement in the mirror perfomance, we have both in-lab data (acquired at DCT) and on-sky data, which was acquired during photometric conditions but with very bad seeing. The data are currently being reduced; we may try to take more on-sky data during the next engineering run. | ||
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| + | Nancy thanked the entire observatory staff for such a successful summer shutdown! | ||
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| - | === Shutdown summary | + | === Cybersecurity |
| - | xxx | + | In light of the recent cyber attack on Gemini Observatory we reevaluated our cybersecurity protocols. We are making improvements to our vulnerabilities and instituting off-site cloud backups for all critical systems. Perhaps not unrelatedly, |
| + | mailing lists they should submit their requests from their institutional email accounts, or if they wish to use personal email addresses, they should notify us so that their requests are not rejected.** | ||
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| === Q3 3.5m scheduling === | === Q3 3.5m scheduling === | ||
| - | There is no open time left in Q3. | + | There is no open time left in Q3. We looked for opportunities to shuffle the schedule in an effort to reduce M3 rotations but there were not a lot of opportunities. The Observing Specialists are getting faster at doing the M3 rotations by hand so this is less of an issue now. We had one ToO called in last night; the rescheduled payback date will be posted in next Q3 schedule update. |
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| === Q4 3.5m scheduling === | === Q4 3.5m scheduling === | ||
| - | xxx | + | The Q4 schedule is in progress and will likely be ready in a couple of days. In Q4 there were 7 different programs that requested partial half-nights, |
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| === Q3 0.5m scheduling === | === Q3 0.5m scheduling === | ||
| - | xxx | + | We currently do not have an estimate for when the filter wheel will be fixed so Q3 users will need to decide if they want to observer filterless or if they want to forego their time. Hopefully we will know more about the filter wheel before sending out the call for Q4 proposals. |
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| Open action items from previous meetings: | Open action items from previous meetings: | ||
| - | * Nancy: track down missing ARCTIC data reduction scripts for wiki. -> OPEN XXX. Making progress on it this week. | + | * Nancy: track down missing ARCTIC data reduction scripts for wiki. -> CLOSED. |
| New action items from this meeting: | New action items from this meeting: | ||
| - | * xxx | + | * UC reps: please notify your department members that if they wish to join our mailing lists they should submit their requests from their institutional email accounts, or if they wish to use personal email addresses, they should notify us so that their requests are not rejected. |
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| === All Other Business === | === All Other Business === | ||
| - | xxx | + | With the recent failure of Agile we need to understand the needs of our users with respect to high speed imaging before making any decisions about repair vs. replace. Within the next few days Nancy will provide several questions to the UC reps to poll their users on and report back at the October UC meeting. |
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uc/uc20230905_september_5_2023.1693929108.txt.gz · Last modified: 2023/09/05 15:51 by nchanove
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