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--- uc:uc20231107_november_7_2023 [2023/11/07 16:15]
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+++ uc:uc20231107_november_7_2023 [2023/12/01 20:52] (current)
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 ==== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 11/07/2023 ====
-UPDATE ALL ATTENDEES
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-Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU),
+Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Jamey Eriksen (APO),  Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Mukremin Kilic, (OU), Eric Bellm (UW), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Sarah Tuttle (UW), Ben Williams (UW)
-Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Misty Bentz (GSU), Mukremin Kilic (OU), Russet McMillan (APO), Ben Williams (UW), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), John Wilson (UVa), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Adam Kowalski (CU), Eric Bellm (UW)
@@ Line 14: / Line 10: @@
   * FGCU - nothing to report (submitted by email)
   * NAPG - no report
-  * Seattle -
+  * Seattle - Joanne is talking with Bill about using SDSS images to make masks for KOSMOS; she had been using DSS images and found that the alignment stars had too much proper motion
   * JHU - nothing to report
   * Georgia State - nothing to report
@@ Line 22: / Line 18: @@
   * BYU - nothing to report
   * Washington - nothing to report
-  * Colorado - nothing to report
+  * Colorado - no report
-  * Wyoming - nothing to report
+  * Wyoming - no report
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 === Additional telescope and instrument discussion ===
-xxx
+October was busy with 2 classes and a visiting instrument team on site. A BYU class is coming in November. The weather has been pretty good lately. We are still working on how to recover from the Agile failure. Some repairs were done to KOSMOS, as detailed in the accompanying site report. The observatory staff is recovering from hosting the ARC Board and SDSS AC meetings at Sunspot/APO last weekend. We had great eyepiece viewing for the SDSS AC and Board members on Friday evening; Candace did a great job playing tour guide with Amanda's help. Muk asked about what work is being done specifically regarding an Agile recovery. Bill reported that the Princeton Instruments camera is obsolete and spare parts are not available. Without an electronics person on staff we are currently at a roadblock in terms of reviving current camera. We have started to evaluate new commercially available cameras that could serve the same role; we might be able to get a loaner from Andor.
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 === Updates from ARC Board of Governors Meeting ===
-xxx
+Nancy recapped the Board meeting (attendees, purpose, presentations that are verbally given and provided to the Board members as reference material, etc.). She shared some of the slides presented to the Board: {{ :uc:2023_3.5m_report_-_for_users_commitee.pdf |}}
+Kevin asked why the median seeing value for the ecam measurements was better (smaller) than that for all of the optical instruments combined. Nancy checked with Russet after this meeting, who said ''I found ecam to be reasonably representative of the visible-light instruments, a little worse than ARCTIC, comparable to Agile and NA2 guider, better than dcam.  But nowadays our visible-light log statistics are probably dominated by kcam, which does have re-imaging optics for the slitviewer that make the seeing look worse.  That could also account for the broader peak of the night-log statistics.  A quick check of the KOSMOS tab from the seeing statistics says that yes, there are only 5 sub-arcsecond log entries for KOSMOS from the whole year.''
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 === 2023 Q4 3.5m scheduling ===
-We have a moderate amount of unassigned time (OPEN or DD02) starting in early November. A lot of it is bright and or shorter than a full half-night. Users are reminded to check the schedule for their assigned time; if a program is allocated half-nights that are truncated due to sharing with a short monitoring program, they may have been scheduled for more half nights than they were expecting.
+We have a some unassigned time (OPEN or DD02) remaining in Q4. Please follow the usual channels for requesting any of this time (i.e. please email Russet, Amanda, Ben, Nancy and your institutional scheduler when submitting requests, and provide a proposal cover page if you don't already have a program scheduled for the current quarter.
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 === 2024 Q1 3.5m scheduling ===
-xxx
+The institutional allocations were mailed out recently, and proposals will be due shortly before Thanksgiving.
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 === 2023 Q4 0.5m scheduling ===
-xxx
+There is not much open time remaining in the Q4 ARCSAT schedule.
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 === Future Meetings ===
-APO will once again have a booth at the January AAS meeting; in 2024 the meeting will be in New Orleans. We hope that many 3.5m users will present results enabled by observations made at APO, and that we can get some help staffing the booth. More details to come next month.
+APO will once again have a booth at the January AAS meeting; in 2024 the meeting will be in New Orleans. We hope that many 3.5m users will present results enabled by observations made at APO, and that we can get some help staffing the booth.
-Nancy reminded everyone that 2024 will mark the 30th anniversary of operations at APO and the 3.5m. In 2014 there was a big bash at the Visitors Center, which included science talks and many of the founding members coming back to visit. In 2019 we held a strategic planning meeting, in conjunction with a 25th anniversary celebration dinner. //Do we want to do anything for the 30th anniversary?// The ARC Board Chair requested that Nancy poll the Users Committee. Joanne reported that her Dean came with her for the 20th anniversary event and it was very successful, enabling her to become a leasing partner. Misty attended both of last two celebrations and thought it would be fun to do more of a party (like in 2014). It would be a great opportunity to show off the facilities, particularly if we could get administrators from the ARC institutions to attend. Derek agreed. Kevin didn't think that JHU would attend such an event. Chip shared UWY's experience of the WIRO 30th anniversary celebration; he thought it was a good celebration event and it helped administrators to see facility. He made a video that he continues to show as needed; Russet thought this would be a good opportunity to update our out-of-date videos.
+Nancy reiterated that if we want to do something to celebrate the 30th anniversary of APO in 2024, we need to start planning soon. This was discussed at the ARC Board meeting but no final decisions were made.
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 Open action items from previous meetings:
-  * UC reps: solicit input from users re: high time resolution imaging needs; feedback due to Nancy on 10/18. -> CLOSED
+  * None
-  * UC reps: collect science highlight slides from users; send to Nancy by 10/23 -> CLOSED
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 === All Other Business ===
-We received a request for observations of T Coronae Borealis (T CrB), a recurrent nova; the next eruption is expected to be in Q1-Q2 2024! See this page for more details: [[https://www.aavso.org/news/t-crb-pre-eruption-dip]] . The head of AAVSO contacted us to ask if anyone could take NIR spectra, which would be particularly useful.
+We received a request for observations of T Coronae Borealis (T CrB), a recurrent nova; the next eruption is expected to be in Q1-Q2 2024! See this page for more details: [[https://www.aavso.org/news/t-crb-pre-eruption-dip]]. The head of AAVSO contacted us to ask if anyone could take NIR spectra, which would be particularly useful.
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