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==== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 9/03/2024 ====

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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Michael Hayden (OU), Moire Prescott (NMSU), Russet McMillan (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Adam Kowalski (CU), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Shane Thomas (APO), Sarah Tuttle (UW), Derek Buzasi (FGCU) 


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

  * BYU - nothing to report
  * Colorado - nothing to report
  * FGCU - nothing to report
  * Georgia State - nothing to report
  * JHU - nothing to report
  * NAPG - no report
  * NMSU - nothing to report
  * Oklahoma - nothing to report
  * Seattle - nothing to report; Joanne has been talking to Jamey about slit masks for KOSMOS
  * UVa - a user was searching for info on ARCSAT using the new web site and reported that many of the links are broken
  * Washington - nothing to report
  * Wyoming - 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, 8/06/2024 – 9/02/2024 //

1) Overview

In terms of weather, August has continued to be monsoonal.  The 3.5m summer telescope shutdown also took place in August, successfully, with a return to science on 8/27.  There were no visiting classes or instrument teams on site during the month of August.
 
2) Operations

3.5m Telescope: Telescope has returned from shutdown. Last night an issue occured with the tertiary tip/tilt mechanism. The tip/tilt system has been power cycled and testing is underway to remap and check for problems. 
 
0.5m Telescope: Telescope is working well. The FlareCam cooling fans were replaced and the instrument is back on the telescope.  
 
KOSMOS: nothing to report.
 
ARCTIC: was vacuum cycled over shutdown, available for use.
 
Agile: the camera failure has been diagnosed to a failed TEC. A purchase order is being worked on for the repair.
 
ARCES: The echelle control computer suffered a disk drive failure recently. The failed drive was replaced as was the other drive in the array; the raid was rebuilt and appears to be stable. The computer has also been intermittently experiencing an issue, which we currently believe to be the power supply. Testing is underway with a spare power supply; so far this has worked at keeping the system up, stable and usable.  IOL measurements appear nominal and are still very good.  
  
DIS: The red camera experienced an intermittent electronics issue that is still not well understood. The camera was recovered and both the red and blue cameras are working. Vacuum servicing may occur in Q4 but has not been scheduled yet.
 
NICFPS: was vacuum cycled over shutdown, and the system is cooled and back in operations.
 
TripleSpec: Both Tcam and Tspec icc computers have had drives swapped in the raid arrays to replace failing drives. The system is up and ready.

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

The weather pattern continued to be monsoonal throughout August. The 3.5m returned to science nicely on 8/27/24 after the summer shutdown. The shutdown provided lots of training opportunities for our newest 3.5m staff members (Cary Smith and Torrie Sutherland). We are currently experiencing an issue with the tip-tilt mechanism on the tertiary mirror. This seems to happen yearly (perhaps due to noise on the lines?). The system was power cycled and rehomed twice in the past week and we are continuing to monitor it. Nancy asked what this issue would look like from an observer's perspective. The tertiary error message would come through on the TUI logs and should be spotted by the obs-spec on duty.  An observer might notice pointing or focus issues, especially after changing ports from NA2 to the echelle. If the recovery process is straightforward it takes 15-30 minutes.

For ARCSAT the FlareCam cooling fans were replaced and the instrument is now back on the telescope.

KOSMOS is behaving as expected.

ARCTIC was vacuum cycled.

The Agile failure has been diagnosed as a failure of the thermoelectric cooler (TEC), and an outside vendor is working on the repair now. We currently have no estimate for its return date yet.

ARCES was problematic last month. There was a disk drive failure of the software RAID array on 2 disks. We haven't seen any disk errors since a new one was installed. This would manifest as slowing down of instrument operations; lots of instrument-specific info is constantly scrolling by in the TUI log window and the instrument log would start filling up. ARCES also has exhibited intermittent failures due to a failing power supply in the computer. We are currently using a temporary desktop one for a stop-gap solution and there is a new drop-in power supply on order. The echelle's inter-order light is nominal. 

The DIS red channel experienced an electronics issue right before shutdown. In this failure mode it has constant pixel values. Bill rebooted it and the issue went away. Vacuum servicing of DIS is likely to happen in Q4.

NICFPS was vacuum cycled over shutdown.

For TripleSpec, both Tcam and Tspec are operational.

**Nancy expressed her sincere thanks to the 3.5m staff for doing such a great job with the summer shutdown and the training activities for the newer staff members. 
**
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=== 2024 Q3 3.5m scheduling ===

We have one remaining unassigned half night in Q3 (Sep 14B). Users should look at the schedule and follow the usual channels for requesting 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). [Note added in proof: there is no more unassigned time remaining in Q3.]

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=== 2024 Q4 3.5m scheduling ===

The Q4 schedule is being assembled now; it should be out early next week. October A halves are extremely oversubscribed; some programs may not get exactly what they asked for. There will be lots of partial night (monitoring) programs in Q4, so the scheduling team will be looking for flexible programs to fit in after or before them during a half-night.

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=== 2024 Q3 0.5 scheduling ===

The Q3 ARCSAT scheduled is posted; there is no open time available. The call for Q4 proposals will be issued after the Q4 3.5m schedule is finished. We anticipate that there may be some requests for coordinated programs between the 3.5m and ARCSAT in Q4.

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=== Website Modernization Effort ===


Starting with the good news: All of the content that is regularly used and is relatively static has been ported to the new web site (https://newapo.apo.nmsu.edu). We might have missed some, so users should definitely let us know if we missing anything. Please provide this feedback to Shane Thomas, Ben Williams or Nancy Chanover and send us the link of the old information that did not get copied over. The next step is for Shane to stand up a development web server to stage the deployment and test how renaming the site will affect its performance. This development server will allow him to test how the new website will work once the old website is taken down (especially links that go from the new site to content on the old site) and check for broken links. The timescale for implementing the development server depends on how many other telescope issues come up in the meantime (for example, the echelle problems took quite of bit of time away from this effort during summer shutdown).

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=== Time Domain Astronomy Opportunity ===

Nancy collected input from the UC members about their departments' interest levels in having the 3.5m host a robotic spectrograph for rapid classification of newly discovered transients. She will assemble the information into a single summary document then respond to the instrument PI with a decision. //Thank you to all users who provided feedback.//

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=== ACTION ITEMS === 

Open action items from previous meetings:
  * Nancy: get ROM costs for new KOSMOS grisms. Sarah reported that she has a finalized quote from one vendor. These are more expensive than we expected so we need to explore potential funding sources. STATUS: OPEN.
  * 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 (link given in the August Users Committee meeting minutes). STATUS: CLOSED.
  * 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. STATUS: OPEN. Waiting for new web site deployment may not be the best approach. Nancy will get examples of this issue from Anne Verbiscer and get something added to the current web site before the next meeting.
  * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q3 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it. Status: CLOSED.
  * Nancy: send UC reps a summary of the time domain discussion and request to users. Status: CLOSED.
  * UC reps: send Nancy's time domain discussion summary and solicit user comments and interest levels by next meeting. Status: CLOSED.


Open action items from this meeting: 

None.

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=== All Other Business ===

None.

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=== Next meeting ===

The next meeting will be on October 1 at 10:30 MDT.

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