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==== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 7/05/2022 ====

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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Ben Williams (UW), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Mukremin Kilic (OU), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Moire Prescott (NMSU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Adam Kowalski (CU)


=== User feedback and comments from institutional representatives ===

  * Wyoming - nothing to report
  * BYU - nothing to report
  * Washington - nothing to report (provided by email)
  * Colorado - nothing to report
  * UVa - nothing to report (provided by email)
  * FGCU - nothing to report (provided by email)
  * Seattle - Joanne reported having had a good experience when she used KOSMOS (about 6 weeks ago)
  * JHU - nothing to report
  * Oklahoma - nothing to report
  * NMSU - nothing recently, but Moire mentioned two suggestions that she sent by email in June: 1) the request for a low-resolution grating for KOSMOS that would cover more galaxy emission lines (that are then ratioed) in a single exposure, 2) comments about some oddities seen in KOSMOS internal+ND flats. [These were also communicated to the observatory staff.]
  * NAPG - no report
  * Georgia State - nothing to report

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=== Telescope and Instruments Report === 

The detailed site report is included below, followed by additional information discussed during today's meeting.

//3.5-m Telescope and Instruments Highlights, 6/06/2022 - 7/05/2022//

0) Overview

APO is no longer under any staffing or indoor masking restrictions from the State of New Mexico due to COVID. The COVID vaccination policy for ARC/APO has not changed.

Weather for June has been mostly monsoonal, the New Mexico wildfires to the west and north have been affecting observing very little compared to May. Pine and juniper pollen affected observing earlier in June but was not as bad as previous years.  

1) Telescope

The telescope experienced an (as yet) unexplained pointing shift in March and a couple others since then. There was one occurrence of this issue in May, an effective workaround to restore pointing and collimation by homing the mirrors appears to help. Root cause of the issue is still being investigated.
 
Telescope experienced an issue with a tertiary actuator that APO has not been able to duplicate as of yet. Tertiary is working currently and investigations are continuing.  

2) Instruments

KOSMOS: Commissioning activities are continuing; the instrument is still being offered on a shared risk basis. A replacement shutter for the slitviewer has arrived and will be replaced in July or possibly over shutdown. Flux was decreased for internal lamps, more tuning is needed, which will take place at the same time as the shutter work. Work is also proceeding on prototype multiobject masks at both NMSU and UW shops.  
 
DIS: Been working well since the power supply failure repair. Please note that the red camera flat field lens has significant water spots. Extended object science is not recommended with the red channel at this time. We will attempt to resolve this issue in early October.

TripleSpec: Cold, operational and performing nominally. 
 
Agile: Cold, operational and performing nominally. There is a known issue with missing observatory and WCS cards from the headers that we are trying to track down. This problem seemed to originate about the time we converted and moved the hub35m to a new server (mid December). 

Echelle: Echelle inter-order light was slowly decreasing with the warmer ambient temperatures, but increased with cooler monsoon temperatures; the ratios are still quite good.
 
NICFPS: The instrument is performing nominally with the occasional need to reset the controller due to corrupted images, and previous cautions about rotator angle.
 
ARCTIC: Cold, operational and performing nominally.  
 
Visiting Instruments : We had recent visits from 2 visiting PI instruments in May and June.  DSSI (UVa sponsored) and HSAR (LANL lease). They are both scheduled for more time this fall/winter.

3) ARCSAT: Limited to no usage lately.

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=== Additional telescope and instrument discussion === 

The weather at APO has been very monsoonal over the past month. The Lincoln National Forest, where APO is located, was recently reopened after a month-long closure, during which all recreational activities and visitors were banned due to fire danger. All 3.5m instruments have been behaving. KOSMOS work is ongoing; the flux levels for the internal lamps will be adjusted during the summer shutdown. Some instruments are experiencing seasonal changes; the echelle inter-order light is still good. There were two visiting instruments on site recently, one from UVa and one from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Both went well, and both have more scheduled time in September. ARCSAT has had limited usage lately due to fewer requests from users.

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=== KOSMOS Update === 

Efforts to make new slits for KOSMOS are ongoing. Sarah Tuttle is working on getting replacement slits made at UW. She and Joe Burchett are also working on getting some test slit masks made at NMSU (3D printed out of metal) for multi-object capability. This will be a good pilot to test the capability and assess how feasible it will be for the user community at large. Joanne's object of interest will be up in late August so she plans to contact Sarah closer to that time to see whether her target can be used for MOS.

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=== Summer shutdown schedule === 

Due to the Contreras Fire at Kitt Peak, it will not be possible to realuminize the 3.5m primary mirror there in mid-August as scheduled. Thus, we are reducing the length of the summer shutdown from three weeks to two weeks: **03 - 17 August inclusive.** This means that there is an additional 7 nights of telescope time (on 01-02 and 18-22 August) that users can submit requests for. These slots are listed as OPEN and DDD01 in the current version of the August schedule. We expect that all instruments will be available. 

Although it is somewhat short notice, we encourage users to think creatively about ways to use this time, including multi-institutional requests, projects that require a full night of coverage of a time-variable phenomenon, etc. Please spread the word to all 3.5m users - we would love to receive lots of requests for this time! The process for requesting this time is the same as usual - interested users should send an email (including a short proposal form if the proposed program does not already have one in the Q3 schedule) to Ben, Russet, Nancy, and their institutional scheduler. **These proposals should be submitted by July 20 at the latest, but earlier would be even better, particularly for the 01-02 August time.**

There was some discussion of other options aside from Kitt Peak for having M1 realuminized next summer. We are actively looking at other options, but unfortunately there are relatively few facilities that can accommodate a 3.5m mirror. The cost for building our own facility on-site is prohibitive (millions of dollars) and would require U.S. Forest Service permitting, which is a time-consuming process.

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=== Q3 3.5m scheduling ===

Aside from the perturbation due to the change in summer shutdown schedule, there is relatively little open time that users can request. We will be trying to fill July 19B relatively soon. 

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=== Q3 ARCSAT scheduling ===

The ARCSAT Q3 schedule is now published; there is still room for some more requests.

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=== Publications reminder ===

APO needs your help in updating the observatory publication record! Please send Nancy (nchanove@nmsu.edu) any references for 3.5m-related publications (refereed publications and student theses/dissertations that have been published or submitted) from Jan 1, 2021 to now. **The deadline is July 31.**

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=== ACTION ITEMS === 

Open action items from previous meetings:

  * Nancy: start investigations re: short wavelength throughput (climate data, other facilities). Status: OPEN. Nancy reached out to some colleagues at other observatories to ask about short wavelength performance degradation of their optical coatings. She got some names from Bill and will contact those individuals next.

New action items from this meeting:

  * UC reps: notify your users of remaining open/DD time in Q3. Status: OPEN.
  * UC reps: remind your users to send Nancy all publications through 2021 by July 31, 2022.


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=== All Other Business ===

None.

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=== Next meeting ===

The next meeting will be on **Tuesday August 2, 10:30 am MDT.**

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