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uc:uc20251007_october_7_2025 [2025/10/14 18:27]
nchanove |
uc:uc20251007_october_7_2025 [2025/10/14 20:55] (current)
nchanove |
| === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === | === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === |
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| * Colorado - Several CU users were wondering about the status about data reduction software for KOSMOS, and whether PyKOSMOS is considered finished and ready for widespread use or whether people should still be using standard IRAF routines. A user found that the spectra are tilted so much that they need to use the Marsh algorithm rather than the Horn algorithm in the reduction, and the PyKOSMOS documentation currently does not address this. Nancy, in collaboration with Sarah Tuttle, took the action item to follow up with Jim Davenport on this and report back. | * Colorado - Several CU users were wondering about the status of data reduction software for KOSMOS, and whether PyKOSMOS is considered finished and ready for widespread use or whether people should still be using standard IRAF routines. A user found that the spectra are tilted so much that they need to use the Marsh algorithm rather than the Horn algorithm in the reduction, and the PyKOSMOS documentation currently does not address this. Nancy and Sarah Tuttle took the action item to follow up with Jim Davenport on this and report back. |
| * BYU - nothing to report | * BYU - nothing to report |
| * Oklahoma - nothing to report | * Oklahoma - nothing to report |
| * Washington - nothing to report other than general interest in the timetable for the KOSMOS repair | * Washington - nothing to report other than general interest in the timetable for the KOSMOS repair |
| * JHU - nothing to report (by email) | * JHU - nothing to report (by email) |
| * Seattle - nothing to report regarding recent observations, but Joanne had a comment on the topic of KOSMOS data reduction. She and her collaborators had a College of Idaho student working with Jon Holtzman of software for slit mask/MOS data reduction. The software is pretty stable and is publicly available but it is not on the wiki yet. Joanne said she would be happy to share it and took the action item to put it on the wiki. | * Seattle - nothing to report regarding recent observations, but Joanne had a comment on the topic of KOSMOS data reduction. She and her collaborators had a College of Idaho student working with Jon Holtzman on software for slit mask/MOS data reduction. The software is pretty stable and is publicly available but it is not on the wiki yet. Joanne said she would be happy to share it and took the action item to put it on the wiki. |
| * NAPG - no report | * NAPG - no report |
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| APO will be hosting an Open House this coming weekend, during which we will be giving public demos, tours, and talks over a 4-hour event. | APO will be hosting an Open House this coming weekend, during which we will be giving public demos, tours, and talks over a 4-hour event. |
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| The 3.5m telescope is performing as expected for this time of year. We had a failure of one of actuators on the secondary mirror, which froze when changing between two ports. Homing of the mirror corrected the problem with no further issues; this was caught during poor weather so no science time was lost. | The 3.5m telescope is performing as expected for this time of year. We had a failure of one of the actuators on the secondary mirror, which froze when changing between two ports. Homing of the mirror corrected the problem with no further issues; this was caught during poor weather so no science time was lost. |
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| The 0.5m telescope is working as expected; Dcam-spare and UVAcam are available to users for Q4. | The 0.5m telescope is working as expected; Dcam-spare and UVAcam are available to users for Q4. |
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| KOSMOS is warm and taken apart as a result of increased dark current reported by the users. At last month's Users Committee meeting we concluded that it was becoming unusable for science and the consensus was that we should not wait until December to do an inspection. Upon taking it offline it was discovered that of the four thermal connections between the LN2 cold strapping and the cold block that cools the CCD, three of them were broken; only 1 was providing cooling. We subsequently ordered new strapping material to do a repair; the material was delayed because it came from Europe. Once it arrived it became apparent that the repair would be more difficult than what we could manage to do on site. We contacted several vendors and got quotes, and ultimately the cold head block and various pieces were sent out to a shop in Albuquerque. They need to procure some materials to do the repair, but we are hoping that by early next week (week of Oct 13-17) the repairs will be completed. Then we will pick it up to return it to APO, do the vacuum baking out to prepare the dewar for service. Ideally we are hoping that it could return to service late in the week of Oct 13-17 but it could be later, depending on how quickly the shop can procure their needed materials and complete the repair. We will continue to update the scheduled KOSMOS users as we learn more about the timetable. | KOSMOS is warm and taken apart as a result of increased dark current reported by the users. At last month's Users Committee meeting we concluded that it was becoming unusable for science and the consensus was that we should not wait until December to do an inspection. Upon taking it offline it was discovered that of the four thermal connections between the LN2 cold strapping and the cold block that cools the CCD, three of them were broken; only one was providing cooling. We subsequently ordered new strapping material to do the repair; the material was delayed because it came from Europe. Once it arrived it became apparent that the repair would be more difficult than what we were comfortable doing on site. We contacted several vendors and got quotes, and ultimately the cold head block and various pieces were sent out to a shop in Albuquerque. They need to procure some materials to do the repair, but we are hoping that by the week of Oct 13-17 the repairs will be completed. Then we will pick it up, return it to APO, and do the vacuum baking out to prepare the dewar for service. Ideally we are hoping that it could return to service late in the week of Oct 13-17 but it could be later, depending on how quickly the shop can procure their needed materials and complete the repair. We will continue to update the scheduled KOSMOS users as we learn more about the timetable. |
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| ARCES: While working on streamlining the software for calculating IOL it was discovered that the DATE-OBS keyword in the FITS headers was wrong (45 min in the future from when image was written). After some data mining we found that this occurred in late August 2024 but it was not caught until now. **If time stamps are important for your echelle observations ARCES observers should take note and we can provide the detailed time offset for anyone for whom this is critical.** Report by a user a few weeks ago that new Th Ar bulb replaced in July 2025 had some weak/missing Ar lines in blue orders. We replaced with a different spare - did this on Sep 29. On Sep 30 reports that the new bulb was slightly fainter than bulb a year ago. Reduction process is more efficient now. Users should also note this. Hollow cathode lamps - can no longer obtain Th metal filaments; increasingly hard to find on the shelf. We just purchased some supply so that we have spares - hope that each one will last a few years each. Becoming harder to find old style THAr lamps. Alternative source may need to be identified. | ARCES: While working on streamlining the software for calculating IOL it was discovered that the DATE-OBS keyword in the FITS headers was wrong (45 min in the future from when the data file was written). After some data mining we found that this occurred in late August 2024 but it was not caught until now. **If time stamps are important for your echelle observations ARCES observers should take note and we can provide the detailed time offset for anyone for whom this is critical.** There was a report from a user a few weeks ago that the new ThAr bulb that was replaced in July 2025 had some weak/missing Ar lines in the blue orders. We replaced it with a different spare on September 29 and the next day we learned that the new bulb was slightly fainter than the bulb from a year ago so ARCES users should also note this. These hollow cathode lamps are no longer being made with Th metal filaments and it is increasingly hard to find spare lamps on the shelf. We just purchased a supply so that we have some spares and we hope that each one will last a few years. Given that it is becoming harder to find the old style ThAr lamps an alternative source may need to be identified. |
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| ARCTIC, NICFPS, TripleSpec and APOLLO are all functioning nominally. DIS and Agile are still slated for decommissioning. | ARCTIC, NICFPS, TripleSpec and APOLLO are all functioning nominally. DIS and Agile are still slated for decommissioning. |
| === 2025 Q4 3.5m scheduling === | === 2025 Q4 3.5m scheduling === |
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| The Q4 schedule is posted. Fair amount of OPEN/DD01 time in late October (dark). All B halves. Hoping to use it to pay back some of the KOSMOS users but not committing until know when KOSMOS returning. Some of KOSMOS time may need to be allocated to other users. Ideally from same institution. Additional OPEN/DD01 time later in quarter, including limited number of A halves or partial A halves. Thank you Russet for doing such a good job with the challenges for this quarter. | The Q4 schedule is posted. There is a fair amount of OPEN/DD01 time in late October (dark time, all B halves). We hope to use some of it to pay back KOSMOS users who had to give up their time but we're not committing to that until we know when KOSMOS will be returning. Some of the scheduled KOSMOS time may need to be allocated to other users, ideally from the same institution. There is additional OPEN/DD01 time later in quarter, including a limited number of A halves or partial A halves. A huge thank you to Russet for doing such a great job with the challenging schedule for this quarter. |
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| === 2025 Q4 0.5 scheduling === | === 2025 Q4 0.5 scheduling === |
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| The ARCSAT Q4 schedule is posted. Pretty full, but this week is open (rest of this week). Some other time available later in the quarter. Two instruments are UVa-cam (larger FOV), Dcam-spare, smaller FOV and less oversampled but Dcam-spare did have some frost after shutdown; gone now but see signatures on detector; they flat field out but looks ugly when takking data. | The ARCSAT Q4 schedule is posted. It is pretty full, but there is some time available later in the quarter. The two available instruments are UVa-cam (larger FOV) and Dcam-spare (smaller FOV and less oversampled). Dcam-spare did have some frost on the window after shutdown; it is gone now but we can still see signatures of it on the detector. They flat-field out but the frames look ugly when taking data. |
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| === Status of new instrument initiatives === | === Status of new instrument initiatives === |
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| * SoonerCam: parts have been trickling in. Received fiber, software dev kit. Waiting on fiber to coax press converters, arriving today? Not computer yet. dig in after november | * SoonerCam: Parts have been trickling in. So far we received the fiber and software developer's kit but we're still waiting on the fiber to coaxpress converters. We will dig into this after early November. |
| * KOSMOS grisms (no change from last month): we are still awaiting a decision on the proposal we submitted for funds to support the purchase of three new grisms for KOSMOS. | * KOSMOS grisms (no change from last month): we are still awaiting a decision on the proposal we submitted for funds to support the purchase of three new grisms for KOSMOS. |
| * ASPEN: We recently learned that a proposal we submitted for funds to support the development of the new echelle spectrograph was not selected for funding. Work on the design of the new optical echelle spectrograph continues with the goal of completing the Preliminary Design Review in early spring 2026. | * ASPEN: We recently learned that a proposal we submitted for funds to support the development of the new echelle spectrograph was not selected for funding. Work on the design of the new optical echelle spectrograph continues with the goal of completing the Preliminary Design Review in early spring 2026. We are hosting an ASPEN team meeting at APO and NMSU this week. |
| * Ocotillo: Now have vibration stabilization and optical table are in house, enclosure too. Started to get optical mounting parts. Student working on software and data side. late this week fibers are coming. Optics are coming in next few weeks (end of the month) including the grating by mid-November (ahead of schedule?). Submitting an ATI for robot side of channel. | * Ocotillo: The vibration stabilization bench and optical table have been delivered, along with the enclosure. We are starting to get optical mounting parts and a student is working on the software and data side. Late this week the fibers should arrive, and the optics will be coming in next few weeks, including the grating. Sarah plans to submit an NSF ATI proposal for the robot side of the third channel. |
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| Open action items from previous meetings: | Open action items from previous meetings: |
| * Nancy: follow up with UWy KOSMOS user to determine severity of dark current issue. | * Nancy: follow up with UWy KOSMOS user to determine severity of dark current issue. Status: CLOSED. |
| * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q3 schedule and request OPEN time in September if they can make a good case for it. | * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q3 schedule and request OPEN time in September if they can make a good case for it. Status: CLOSED. |
| * UC reps: poll your users about a Jan. 2026 splinter session at the AAS for APO science highlights and networking (or other ideas!). | * UC reps: poll your users about a Jan. 2026 splinter session at the AAS for APO science highlights and networking (or other ideas!). Status: CLOSED. |
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| New action items from this meeting: | New action items from this meeting: |
| * xxx | * Nancy/Sarah: follow up with Jim Davenport about the status of PyKOSMOS and report back. |
| | * Joanne Hughes: put the KOSMOS MOS data reduction software on the wiki. |
| | * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q4 schedule and request OPEN/DD01 time if they can make a good case for it. |
| | * UC reps: remind your users to ** provide Nancy with science highlights from 2025; she needs to receive them no later than Monday October 27.** |
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| === All Other Business === | === All Other Business === |
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| Timeline for KOSMOS? Jan. chip temp increase. Late winder/early spring prob not affected. Mark Croom | We discussed the timeline of events that led to the temperature issues for KOSMOS. In January 2025 the chip temperature increased. Data taken in late winter and early spring were probably not affected, but users started to notice the issue in the mid/late spring. |
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| | Gordon is working on a new release for TUI (v3.2), which will be coming out soon. The new version cleaned out some old scripts and removed the option of selecting instruments that are being decommissioned. The most exciting aspect is that he is working on packaging to make the software installation process more simple for users, especially students. Although we encourage users to stay current with their TUI versions, older versions of the software will still work. |
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| === Next meeting === | === Next meeting === |
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| The next meeting is currently scheduled for Tuesday November 4, 2025. This directly conflicts with the ARC Board meeting; shall we reschedule for one week later or cancel the November meeting and meet again in December? | The next Users Committee meeting is currently scheduled for Tuesday November 4, 2025, which directly conflicts with the ARC Board of Governors meeting. Therefore the November UC meeting is canceled, and we will meet next on Tuesday December 2, 2025, at 10:30 MST. |
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| Gordon - working on new release for TUI - v3.2 - plans to get it out soon. Had some instruments decommissioned, cleaned out old scripts. Most exciting aspect is working on packaging to make install process more simple for users, especially students. Get the changes automated to be download to Git Hub. Prev versions will still work but encourage uses to keep updated. | |
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