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==== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 03/07/2023 ====

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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Russet McMillan (APO), Gordon MacDonald (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Eric Bellm (UW), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Jon Holtzman (NMSU), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Sarah Tuttle (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa) 

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

  * JHU - nothing to report
  * Georgia State - nothing to report
  * UVa - nothing to report
  * Washington - nothing to report
  * BYU - nothing to report
  * Oklahoma - nothing to report (by email)
  * NAPG - no report
  * Wyoming - nothing to report
  * FGCU - nothing to report (by email)
  * Colorado - no report
  * NMSU - nothing to report
  * Seattle - 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, 2/6/2023 – 3/6/2023 //

1) Overview

APO is weathering the winter storms; it seems like we’ve had more snow this year compared to the previous couple years. Cold temperatures and snow have been sticking around for significant days through February.  

2023 has been quiet thus far in terms of class or teams visiting the observatory, which is about to change this month.  March will see the UVa (DSSI) team and CU class (K. France), which overlap slightly.  We are also looking forward to a rescheduled UW visit for KOSMOS servicing, which we hope will happen the week of March 20th.

2) Operations

The 3.5m and 0.5m telescopes have both performed as expected over the past month. 
 
TUI 3.1.0 is available for most common OS versions (MacOS, Windows, Linux); work on a Docker mode for TUI is progressing.
 
KOSMOS is slated for service, with UW visiting APO the week of March 20th.  
 
The ARCTIC diffuser is not rotating in colder temperatures; investigations are underway. 
 
The Agile sync clock signal investigation is in progress as well.  Failure rate is increasing.
 
DIS scattered light is improving slowly as expected, however, blue is still considered by APO to be pretty bad and red is considered borderline usable.  

Nothing new to note on any of the other instruments.
 
3) Other

Efforts are continuing for the design of a system that will allow the 3.5m mirror to be coated in the LDT chamber. 

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=== Additional telescope and instrument discussion === 

The observatory has been hit with several snow storms that have significantly impacted observing over the past few weeks. The forecast is improving for the next week or so. March is shaping up to be a busy month: the UVa/DSSI team is here now, a CU class will be on site next week, and Sarah Tuttle will be here the week of March 20th for KOSMOS work. More visitors will be coming in Q2, so we expect to be remain quite busy through June.

TUI work is continuing, with a Docker mode in the works.

Instrument updates:

  * The ARCTIC diffuser has been acting up in cold weather; investigations into that issue are underway.
  * The issue of the Agile time stamps in the image headers being incorrect is actively being worked on. The issue is with the trigger signal that comes from the high speed/high accuracy clock that's in the ICC machine. For users, this might be manifested as an error message, or it could affect header information even if there is no error message. The image time stamps are intended to be accurate to 0.01 s but currently there is no way to test that because the other machines are less accurate. Users should assume that the exact time stamps in their Agile image headers are unreliable, although the length of exposures and the photometry are both still fine. It is really just the precise timing that is affected; this issue started in mid-January.
  * DIS scattered light is behaving as expected.
  * There is a current issue with the TripleSpec instrument cart, which does not affect observing but does affect instrument fills during the day. As a result it could take longer to mount/unmount the instrument until the cart gets repaired; parts are on order.

Work is proceeding for getting the 3.5m mirror ready for realuminization at Lowell this summer. We heard from KPNO that they will not be able to accommodate any external mirrors at their coating chamber this summer, so it's good that we decided to proceed with having the work done at Lowell.

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=== Data reduction software update === 

In response to last month's action item to provide an update on quick-look data reduction software (in that context, for KOSMOS), we discussed several software options. pyKOSMOS is still in development and we were unable to get a status update before this meeting; Sarah will keep trying.

Jon Holtzman presented an overview of pyvista, which he has been developing for several years. pyvista is intended to be a general purpose software package for reducing astronomical data (imaging and spectroscopy), although it was developed with APO instruments in mind. It is not intended to have a lot of fancy bells and whistles, but it does have a pedagogical aspect to it (i.e. it is not a black box) and is used to teach both undergraduates and graduate students about data reduction. Interested users can read more about it here: https://pyvista.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ and are welcome to give it a try; please contact Jon (holtz@nmsu.edu) with any questions. Several people at NMSU are using it to reduce their ARCES, KOSMOS, and DIS data; the photometry and TripleSpec packages are not done or fully documented yet. The spectroscopy reduction code builds off existing calibration spectra, and can include automated line identification. It propagates uncertainties through the pipeline and can display S/N images.

Other options for reducing spectrograph data include PypeIt (developed by X. Prochaska with a significant number of supporting helpers) and PyReduce. Eric B. reported that he tried to get PypeIt working with DIS data and had limited success; if someone wants to build on what he started it is possible, but it's a complex piece of software. Kevin reported that his group is using CERES to reduce ARCES data: https://github.com/rabrahm/ceres.

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=== Instrumentation update ===

Nancy will be providing updates on various instrumentation initiatives every two months, or when otherwise needed.

Regarding Ocotillo, Sarah reported that she and her team are preparing for the Preliminary Design Review. They are conducting in-lab testing to finalize some hardware preferences. Caleb is putting together the fiber feed connections for the NA2 port. For the multi-object portion with robotically positioned fibers as well as for the integral field unit, traditionally one would build fiber bundles. Sarah, working with some collaborators at LBNL, is currently exploring the option of using cleaved fibers that would then be bundled, which would keep the throughput high across the entire bandpass. She will notify the Users Committee once they are preparing to do the PDR with the observatory staff and will provide summary documents to the Users Committee after that.

Plans for a multi-band imager are still being formulated, and require discussions with the UVa instrument team to flesh out how such an instrument would fit into their planned progression of instrument development efforts.

Regarding a new echelle spectrograph, a small team from JHU and UVa is working on a conceptual design. In parallel with that, Nancy is assembling a small tiger team of active echelle users to outline the science requirements that will flow down to instrument performance requirements, and to help develop the science case(s) that will be used to pursue external funding for the instrument. She is seeking 1-2 more echelle users for the tiger team, so Users Committee members were asked to forward this information to their department members and let her know if they have any recommendations or volunteers who would be willing to serve on this team. 

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=== Q1 3.5m scheduling ===

There is one unassigned date remaining in the Q1 schedule (Mar 27B), for which we have already received a request. High priority requests will still be considered; a decision on how to allocate this time will likely be made next week.

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=== Q2 3.5m scheduling ===

The Q2 schedule is in draft form and is nearly complete; we expect to be able to publish it before the end of this week. In Q2 we are expecting 3 visiting instrument runs (with 2 different instruments) along with 4 on-site class groups. There were not too many programs that requested numerous partial nights (e.g. for a monitoring program) but we did receive requests from quite a few programs requiring observing time for specific events on specific dates that cross the midnight (A/B half) boundary, which means there ended up being lots of partial nights in the schedule. We are awaiting answers to a couple of outstanding questions and then the schedule will be published.

We only have one person signed up for the Q2 remote training opportunity that we offer for postdocs, research faculty, etc. so we may not offer a remote training in Q2. Despite our requests to receive notification about remote training needs well in advance of building the schedule (this information is conveyed every quarter in the allocation emails sent to the institutional schedulers), we generally receive these requests well after the schedule is made, which is problematic. **Users Committee: please poll your department users and if there is a need for a remote training option for Q2, notify Russet ASAP (within the next day or so).**

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=== Q1 ARCSAT scheduling ===

The Q1 ARCSAT schedule has some open slots. **UC reps: please remind your users that they should notify us if their plans change and they will not use their ARCSAT time.** We recognize that sometimes people make last-minute decisions based on weather and that's fine; we're asking that if someone decides to not make use of their entire week of scheduled time, they notify Russet, Nancy, and Ben. This can help us by avoiding unnecessary instrument changes and scheduling ARCSAT engineering time to fill the schedule gaps.

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=== ACTION ITEMS === 

Open action items from previous meetings:

  * Nancy: make sure that the APO web site gets updated to address the issues reported by Eric B. in December. Status: OPEN. There is one remaining issue that needs to be addressed:
     * the wiki link on the 3.5m page still pointed to the old wiki - //this was fixed.//
     * the Search Site function on the APO home page does not work. //A notice will be added to reflect the fact that this search tool will not work from computers outside of the APO VPN.//
     * the ToO policy is not easily found. //We are working on a document// that we can post on the scheduling page to make this information more easy to locate.
  * Nancy or Russet: get sample KOSMOS data from JHU user who reported scattered light issue. Status: OPEN. Russet will contact the user to troubleshoot this, and will include Sarah and Nancy.
  * Nancy: share communications plan re: new instrumentation with UC at next meeting. Status: CLOSED.
  * Nancy: get updated on pyKOSMOS and report to UC next month. Status: OPEN. 
  * Nancy: notify Joanne of site restrictions regarding maximum number of people in visiting group. Status: CLOSED.

New action items from this meeting:

  * UC reps: notify your users about the option of using pyvista (and/or some of the other packages listed above) for data reduction.
  * UC reps: notify your users that Nancy is seeking 1-2 more echelle users to participate in the tiger team charged with firming up the science requirements for a new echelle spectrograph.
  * UC reps: poll your department users and if there is a need for a remote training in option for Q2, notify Russet ASAP (within the next day or so).
  * UC reps: remind your users that they should notify us if their plans change and they wish to forfeit their week of scheduled ARCSAT time.

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=== All Other Business ===

None.

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=== Next meeting ===

The next meeting will be on **Tuesday April 4, 10:30 am MST.**

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