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==== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 7/02/2024 ====

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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Adam Kowalski (CU), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Sarah Tuttle (UW), Mukremin Kilic (OU), Shane Thomas (APO), Misty Bentz (GSU), Ben Williams (UW), Gordon MacDonald (APO)


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

  * FGCU - no report
  * NAPG - no report
  * Seattle - thanks to Amanda and Russet for helping make our recent MOS observations a success
  * BYU - nothing to report
  * Oklahoma - nothing to report
  * Georgia State - our students are looking forward to next week's trip to APO!
  * Colorado - Adam asked about the impact of satellite constellations on 3.5m observations from APO? The consensus was that it's pretty low, but Anne reported that she has had some interference in imaging data that were acquired around twilight using ARCTIC.
  * Wyoming - no report
  * UVa - nothing to report
  * JHU - nothing to report
  * NMSU - nothing to report
  * Washington - nothing to report (sent by email)

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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, 6/05/2024 – 7/01/2024 //

1) Overview

June has seen generally improving type weather at APO, transitioning to a monsoon pattern. The telescope has continued to work well also.

June started out with a class visit from a CU group, and mid-month we had a visit from a small team from UW.

Two brush/forest fire started the morning of 6/17 near Ruidoso, which is approximately 40 miles as the crow flies from APO.  Smoke has stayed away, and the fires are over 50% contained now.  Over 25,000 acres burned very quickly, and 1400+ structures were damaged/destroyed in the Village of Ruidoso and the surrounding towns.

2) Operations

3.5m Telescope: The telescope is working well, with motion errors that seem to be primarily of the seasonal type.
 
0.5m Telescope: The telescope and cameras are working well other than some minor hiccups. The telescope went through engineering/shutdown during the last week of June, during which the primary mirror was cleaned.
 
KOSMOS: A new set of 1.25” slits from UW were evaluated on an engineering night. The instrument also had a vacuum service performed as well as the getter baked out to recharge it. 
 
Agile: The instrument TEC controls failed. A repair place has been identified and the camera will be sent out for evaluation.
 
ARCES: The inter-order light had stabilized in the blue but has recently started to get a little worse; the red continues to be stable. The instrument is still considered excellent for use, with scattered light not being a major issue.

DIS is still functioning, and the contamination is slightly improved on both cameras.
 
All other instruments are performing nominally.

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=== Additional site, telescope and instrument discussion === 

Misty suggested that a short description of the impact of satellites be posted on the webpage somewhere and updated every 6 months or so. This is useful information that should be made available to the entire user community, and it might evolve with time. **Nancy will discuss this with Shane to make this happen.**

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=== 2024 Q3 3.5m scheduling ===

We have a some unassigned short slots OPEN time remaining in July. 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 0.5 scheduling ===

The Q3 ARCSAT scheduled is posted; there is no open time available. The shutdown dates for ARCSAT will be same as for the 3.5m, i.e. August 12-26.

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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 was June 30 but Nancy can still take submissions.** 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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=== Website Modernization Effort ===

A lot of work is going on behind the scenes to develop a new APO web site. All users are encouraged to review the new web site and confirm that the information you frequently wish to access is there and easily findable for you. We are not seeking comments on the look-and-feel or style (yet). The current version is considered to be in the "alpha state" so it is still fairly preliminary. Once we receive and address the first round of feedback then we will go to a beta version and then deploy it, likely in a tiered fashion. The new web site is going to be mobile friendly, though it may not work well on all pages yet. **UC reps: ask your users to review the new web site (https://newapo.apo.nmsu.edu/) and provide any feedback on this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XTGF1ekWatAW-T2xl71rIZgVlEBhtLVWJrkX8cSh8Nw/edit?usp=sharing.

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=== ACTION ITEMS === 

Open action items from previous meetings:
  * Nancy: get ROM costs for new KOSMOS grisms. STATUS: OPEN.
  * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q2 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it. STATUS: CLOSED.
  * UC reps: remind your users to send Nancy references for all 3.5m- and 0.5m-related publications from Jan. 1 2023 to present by the deadline of June 30. STATUS: CLOSED.

Open action items from this meeting: 
  * UC reps: ask your users to review the alpha version of the new web site to determine whether the content they are used to finding on the web site is still there and easy to find. All feedback should be provided through the Google sheet given above. 
  * Nancy: Ensure that a short description of the impact of satellites be posted on the APO website somewhere and updated every 6 months or so.

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=== All Other Business ===

None.

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=== Next meeting ===

The next meeting will be on August 6 at 10:30 MDT.

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