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==== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 09/05/2023 ====

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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Misty Bentz (GSU), Mukremin Kilic (OU), Russet McMillan (APO), Ben Williams (UW), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Derek Buzasi (FGCU), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU)


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

  * BYU - nothing to report
  * FGCU - no report
  * Wyoming - nothing to report
  * 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:arcticspeed|here]]). Muk requested that we get a BG40 filter for ARCTIC for photometry of blue targets; Bill got some quotes and the filter has been ordered. We hope to get it within the next 60 days.
  * NAPG - no report
  * Seattle - Joanne's collaborators are going to APO with some students for a training visit at the end of this week. She is still trying to refine a data pipeline for KOSMOS data taken through slit masks; the pipeline will be provided both in IRAF and python. She is talking with Bill and Joe Burchett about it.
  * Georgia State - nothing to report
  * Washington - nothing to report (by email)
  * Colorado - no report
  * UVa - nothing to report
  * JHU - nothing to report
  * 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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=== 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, 8/01/2023 – 9/04/2023 //

1) Overview

It has been a very busy and exciting month at APO! Shutdown started in late July and culminated with the return to sky on 8/23.  The mirror was successfully recoated at Lowell Discovery Telescope outside of Flagstaff.  The team of Bill Ketzeback, Amanda Townsend, Riley DeColibus and Jamey Eriksen escorted the mirror to LDT, worked with the LDT team who cleaned, stripped and recoated the mirror in the LDT chamber, and then escorted the mirror back to APO.   

In late August a visiting team from UVa for DSSI arrived at APO.  In September we will host a visiting group from the Pacific Northwest, along with a group associated with the SDSS project for a software coding workshop.  

2) Operations

3.5m Telescope: 

The telescope returned to operations post-shutdown. The M3 rotation failure has been narrowed down to a failed high resolution encoder.  A replacement has been ordered, a new mount is being fabricated and we anticipate being able to test the replacement encoder in 2 weeks.  A plan is also being developed for an upgrade path for the M3 rotation system because of the obsolete parts in the system (the motors and motor encoders, which we have not been able to find spares for).

The telescope balance has been marginal after the removal of the LANL instrument. There is an occasional motion error during slews. So far no reports have been received about motion errors while tracking. Further refinements of telescope balance are ongoing. 
 
Instruments: 

- KOSMOS was warmed up during shutdown for a vacuum cycle with a getter recharge; the  instrument is now cooled and operational.

- servicing of the ARCTIC diffuser rotator had to be postponed; it will be rescheduled for a later date.

- The Agile TEC controls failed. Princeton Instruments will no longer support the camera or controller hardware. Finding and ordering surplus equipment in an attempt to repair it has so far been unsuccessful.    
 
- The ARCES inter-order light ratios (measure of scattered light in the instrument) are still good but are declining again in the warmer weather.
 
- The scattered light in the DIS red camera improved dramatically recently (attributed to a detector partial warm up) and the camera is considered to be very good. However, the blue camera is still considered sub-par. 

0.5m Telescope: The filter wheel has failed. Attempts to repair it have so far been unsuccessful. A replacement filter wheel is being researched.

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=== Additional telescope and instrument discussion, shutdown summary === 

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.

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.

Following a successful summer shutdown the 3.5m telescope is back in operations.

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.

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:arcticspeed|here]]).

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.

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.

Nancy thanked the entire observatory staff for such a successful summer shutdown!

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=== Cybersecurity === 

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, we have seen a dramatic increase in requests to join our email lists from bogus email addresses. **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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=== Q3 3.5m scheduling ===

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 ===

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, so we attempted to pair those together when possible. As a reminder users should check their scheduled observations, including the start/end times, and notify us if there are any errors. We also have 4 visiting classes and another visiting instrument run that are scheduled back to back. The schedule will have several bright open halves late in Q4 that users can request if needed.

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=== Q3 0.5m scheduling ===

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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=== ACTION ITEMS === 

Open action items from previous meetings:

  * Nancy: track down missing ARCTIC data reduction scripts for wiki. -> CLOSED.


New action items from this meeting:
  * 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 ===

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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=== Next meeting ===

The next meeting will be on October 3 at 10:30 MDT.

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