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==== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 01/07/2025 ====

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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Eric Bellm (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Moire Prescott (NMSU), Moire Prescott (NMSU), Russet McMillan (APO), Misty Bentz (GSU),  Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Zach Berta-Thompson (CU), Sarah Tuttle (UW),  Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Ben Williams (UW), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy)

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

  * Oklahoma - no report
  * BYU - nothing to report
  * JHU - nothing to report
  * NMSU - nothing to report 
  * Washington - nothing to report
  * Georgia State - nothing to report
  * Colorado - the ARCTIC diffuser rotator stopped working and users are asking about the timeline for getting it repaired; one user had a weird issue with KOSMOS when it stopped taking exposures
  * Wyoming - nothing to report
  * UVa - nothing to report
  * Seattle - 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, 12/03/24 – 01/07/25 //

1) Overview

Weather wise, December was very mild in terms of both temperatures and precipitation. There were no astronomers, instrument teams or classes that visited APO in the month of December.

2) Operations

3.5m Telescope: Telescope is working as expected.
 
0.5m Telescope:   Telescope is working as expected.
 
KOSMOS: nothing to report.
 
ARCTIC: We performed another emergency vacuum service due to the vacuum softening. The current hypothesis for the cause of this issue is that we may have gotten/installed an ion pump that had a defective/reduced lifetime; it is still struggling to maintain vacuum.  We plan to replace it ASAP with minimal or no impact to the science schedule. In the meantime, we have restricted instrument rotation to prevent the ion pump from shorting out when upside down, which seems to be a pattern. Additional maintenance on the diffuser mechanism will be scheduled as well given the reports of intermittent behavior at times.
 
Agile: It is being worked on at the repair house to investigate the hardware that was changed and how that impacts observing modes/gain settings. APO software control was not able to configure the camera as expected when it was initially tested at APO after the repairs.  
 
ARCES: The system is up, however, over the holiday break there was an error indicating a failure to read images, which led to the instrument control software being restarted.  That restart led to additional errors when the system recovered in an unexpected way. We are investigating this further. Science was/is not affected, this only impacted daily engineering IOL data. 
  
DIS: System is currently up and usable.
 
NICFPS: System is cooled and usable.
 
TripleSpec: System is up and usable.
 
APOLLO: system leaks were repaired and the system is in operation.

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

Nothing to add other than what was in agenda. There is a multi-day weather system coming in tonight, which could include snow. The KOSMOS weirdness that Zach reported above has been resolved. There was an emergency vacuum servicing done for ARCTIC; the ion pump was replaced this past weekend. ARCTIC was used B half last night without issue. Russet suggested that we remove the rotation restriction for ARCTIC. The diffuser rotator repair is still to be scheduled; it was tensioned but the rotation sensor is not working properly. Agile is still at the repair shop. ARCES is back and usable after the issue with daytime metrology data described in the site report above. Russet will check with Amanda about headers not being written properly for KOSMOS; this anomaly affected Zach BT a few weeks ago. 

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=== 2025 Q1 3.5m scheduling ===

We have some unassigned time in Q1 (mostly B halves). This time is listed as OPEN on the Q1 schedule. 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).

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=== 2025 Q1 0.5 scheduling ===

The 2025 Q1 ARCSAT scheduled is posted. We only had 2 requests this quarter (note added in proof: we received a third request, so there are now 3 programs scheduled to use ARCSAT in Q1). We are continuing to struggle with frequent failures in communication with the camera (which manifests as a "support library error"); FlareCam is getting old. The temporary fix is fairly quick so if observers can keep an eye on it and report errors it can be recovered pretty quickly. In early March we will have an onsite class and other stuff going on so ARCSAT is not available during weeks when the schedule is marked BUSY.

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=== Website Modernization Effort ===

There is a plan to run a test tomorrow for converting the site to new servers (but this may be postponed due to illness).

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=== IT Security ===

The IT team at APO is still researching applications to improve password handling; all we know right now is that the switching of the TUI password is coming.

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=== Status of new instrument initiatives === 

We have heard no news from NSF regarding the pre-proposal that was submitted for ASPEN; we hope to hear soon. Sarah reported that since having received the Ocotillo CDR report on December 2 her team has been evaluating the comments and preparing a response. They also applied for some funding and are waiting to hear back. It is clear that the instrument will come together in a phased approach, bringing the three channels online one at a time. They will start with the IFU and follow up with MOS component, which is more costly and mechanically complicated. The hope is that this would enable supported data reduction development along the way and troubleshooting as we go. It also spaces out the cost, which reduces impact on the overall observatory budget. Their goal is to have their response report back to the CDR review panel by the end of the month.

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=== DIS Decommissioning Plans ===

Nancy is working on developing a document that lays out the decommissioning plan for DIS. The instrument has not been serviced and will only be available in Q1 (and Q2) in a shared risk mode.

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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. The grism design turns out to be a little complicated, but also, costs have gone up, so these are more expensive than we expected (ballpark $20k apiece). Therefore, we need to explore potential funding sources. We have reached an impasse in terms of prioritizing the desired grism; Nancy will amass all previous emails with grism requests and send to UC reps to query users about whether there is broad interest in a particular grism. This could help identify funding sources, either individually or collaboratively. STATUS: OPEN. Nancy has started a proposal to the Mt. Cuba Foundation for several grisms and hopes to have it submitted before the next Users Committee meeting.
  * 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. Nancy received examples of this issue from Anne Verbiscer and will get something added to the current (and new) web site. STATUS: OPEN.
  * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q1 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it. STATUS: OPEN.

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 February 4, 2025 at 10:30 MST.

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