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==== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 5/07/2024 ====

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Attending: Cary Smith (APO), Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Moire Prescott (NMSU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Eric Bellm (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Ben Williams (UW), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Mukremin Kilic (OU)

=== Introduction of new 3.5m Observatory Instrument Specialist ===

Cary Smith, the new 3.5m Observatory Instrument Specialist, started his new position at APO on April 29. Cary has extensive observatory experience, having worked previously at McDonald Observatory and Las Cumbres Observatory (which included a number of different facilities). He has a degree in Physics and has worked in astronomical observatories ever since getting his degree. Welcome, Cary! We're delighted to have you on board and we look forward to working with you.

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

  * UVa - nothing to report
  * NMSU - nothing to report
  * BYU - nothing to report
  * FGCU - no report
  * Wyoming - nothing to report
  * Washington - nothing to report
  * Colorado - no report
  * JHU - nothing to report (sent by email)
  * Seattle - nothing to report
  * Oklahoma - In April OU had a nice class trip to APO with 13 people. They appreciate the help from the APO staff and the excellent training. **Nancy will send Muk the feedback form to distribute to the students.**
  * Georgia State - nothing to report
  * NAPG - no 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, 4/03/2024 – 5/06/2024 //

1) Overview

April has seen generally improving weather at APO. The telescope also has continued to work well.

April began with a student group visit from OU. We also hosted a visiting team for APOLLO work at the end of April/beginning of May.  

A brush/forest fire started around noon MDT on May 3. It is located in Timberon, approximately 12.7 miles South East of APO. It was estimated at 100 acres in size late on May 3. APO will continue to monitor the situation until the fire is contained/out.  Smoke and ash may impact observing over the next few days at APO. 

2) Operations

3.5m Telescope: Telescope is working well, motion errors seem to be of the seasonal type.
 
0.5m Telescope:  Telescope and cameras are working well except for some minor hiccups.
 
KOSMOS: the new slit set of 1.25” is due to arrive in early May.
 
ARCTIC diffuser’s rotator service is being planned for Q2/Q3 when time permits between observing runs.
 
Agile Instrument TEC controls failed.  Attempted repairs have so far been unsuccessful.
 
Echelle IOL has continued to exhibit a slow decline in blue, red is stable.  Still considered excellent currently for use. 

TripleSpec is operating with no issues.
 
DIS is functioning with nothing to report.
   
3) Other

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=== Additional telescope and instrument discussion === 

The recent fire in Timberon was contained quickly and little smoke came towards APO so we were not affected. We've had good weather at the site recently. The OU class visit went well, The APOLLO team was on site in late April for some engineering work. The new 1.25" slits for KOSMOS arrived from UW today; they will be inspected and then installed into KOSMOS. There was an all-hands 3.5m observing specialist training on APOLLO operations on April 22. It went well, and Russet is doing an outstanding job of documenting and distilling the operational instructions for this very complex and idiosyncratic system.

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=== Summer shutdown schedule === 

Summer shutdown is scheduled for August 12-26, inclusive. There will be some instrument servicing done throughout the summer but several of the instruments are used so frequently that they will be handled during the shutdown. The observatory staff will also do the routine and critical maintenance items, such as those to eliminate moth problems, and then turn the telescope back over to the users. We will not be taking the telescope apart this year given that we had the primary mirror realuminized last summer. We plan to give the observing specialists some more training time coming out of shutdown so that they can gain more experience with the shutdown recovery process. We will not be recoating the second or tertiary mirrors this summer but are considering that for next summer.

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=== 2024 Q2 3.5m scheduling ===

We have a some unassigned time (OPEN or DD01) remaining in Q2, most notably a dark night on June 5. Some of the available slots are short, while others are complete half-nights. Users should follow the usual channels for requesting any of this time (i.e. email Russet, Amanda, Ben, Nancy and their 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 Q3 3.5m scheduling ===

The allocation emails went out late last week, and all Q3 requests are due by May 24. We are aiming to have the Q3 schedule posted around June 10. As a reminder, please notify the scheduling team early (before the proposal deadline if possible) if you are planning to bring a group of trainees to the site in Q3. **Nancy will contact NAPG to ask about their summer visit plans.**

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=== 2024 Q2 0.5 scheduling ===

There is some open ARCSAT time on May 11-16 and more in early June. Please email the scheduling team if you wish to request it.

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=== Annual Request to Update Publication Record ===

**Please send Nancy any references for 3.5m-related publications (anything published from Jan 1 2023 to now). The deadline is June 30.** Understanding the scientific usage and impact of the telescope is critical for evaluating future projects, initiatives, instrument concepts, etc., thus we need your help in updating our publication record! We are now participating in a cross-observatory analysis of scientific impact of ground-based telescopes, so it is especially important that we capture all publications resulting from APO observations. Any publications resulting from ARCSAT data are also requested. The listing should include refereed publications and student theses and dissertations (not conference abstracts unless they are peer reviewed) that made use of data acquired with the 3.5m and/or ARCSAT, published from 2023 to the present. If a paper has been submitted to a journal but has not yet completely gone through the review process, please include that as well, with the name of the journal and “submitted.”

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=== ACTION ITEMS === 

Open action items from previous meetings:
  * Nancy: get ROM costs for new KOSMOS grisms. UPDATE: We are in the process of putting together some quotes and working with vendors, and will make decisions from there. We will use examples that had been requested by users previously in order to get quotes so we have some idea of what will be possible. STATUS: OPEN.
  * UC reps: remind your users that observers must respond to reminder emails at least 24 hours in advance. STATUS: CLOSED.

Open action items from this meeting:
  * Nancy: send Muk the feedback form to distribute to the students. (done!)
  * Nancy: contact NAPG to ask about their summer visit plans. (done!)
  * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q2 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it.

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=== All Other Business ===

Ben Williams provided an update regarding work being done to develop a new APO web site. Shane has created a whole separate web site with a more modern front end and database-driven apps on the back end. It has been time consuming to port all of the existing web site content over, which was the first step, and then evaluating how to improve the user experience and remove redundant or unnecessary information. We are getting close to the point where we will be ready to seek broader feedback on the new web site from the user community; we are aiming to provide the link to new site at the next Users Committee meeting so people can check it out and provide feedback.

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=== Next meeting ===

The next meeting will be on June 4 at 10:30 MDT.

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