===== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 11/07/2023 ===== Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Mukremin Kilic, (OU), Eric Bellm (UW), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Sarah Tuttle (UW), Ben Williams (UW) === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === * FGCU - nothing to report (submitted by email) * NAPG - no report * Seattle - Joanne is talking with Bill about using SDSS images to make masks for KOSMOS; she had been using DSS images and found that the alignment stars had too much proper motion * JHU - nothing to report * Georgia State - nothing to report * UVa - nothing to report * Oklahoma - nothing to report * NMSU - nothing to report * BYU - nothing to report * Washington - nothing to report * Colorado - no report * Wyoming - no report ---- === 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, 10/03/2023 – 11/06/2023 // 1) Overview October was a welcome busy month at APO. The telescope has continued to work well since the shutdown. The weather has been very nice as well. Humidity and storms are starting to pick up and temperatures are starting to drop. Mid-October saw back-to-back class visits from NMSU and UVa. Both were large classes and filled up APO housing. We also had the visiting instrument DSSI on the telescope before the classes started. 2) Operations 3.5m Telescope: - There is an occasional motion error during slews. So far no reports have been received about motion errors while tracking. - A new pointing model was implemented after an engineering night because of a pointing shift that occurred. The source of the pointing shift is being investigated. 0.5m Telescope: The telescope is working with the reduced filter set in the loaner filter wheel. 3.5m Instruments: The KOSMOS disperser wheel motion issues were tracked down and repaired, along with lead screw nuts on the cal stage. Some locking nuts on the instrument cart were also repaired. There have been no reports of issues since the repairs were completed. The servicing of ARCTIC's diffuser rotation mechanism was postponed and has not yet been rescheduled. Agile remains unavailable due to a failure of the TEC controls. Attempted repairs have so far been unsuccessful. Echelle interorder light ratios (measure of scattered light in the instrument) are still excellent. DIS scattered light on the red camera is currently very good; on the blue camera it had been improving but now it seems to be leveling off. ---- === Additional telescope and instrument discussion === October was busy with 2 classes and a visiting instrument team on site. A BYU class is coming in November. The weather has been pretty good lately. We are still working on how to recover from the Agile failure. Some repairs were done to KOSMOS, as detailed in the accompanying site report. The observatory staff is recovering from hosting the ARC Board and SDSS AC meetings at Sunspot/APO last weekend. We had great eyepiece viewing for the SDSS AC and Board members on Friday evening; Candace did a great job playing tour guide with Amanda's help. Muk asked about what work is being done specifically regarding an Agile recovery. Bill reported that the Princeton Instruments camera is obsolete and spare parts are not available. Without an electronics person on staff we are currently at a roadblock in terms of reviving current camera. We have started to evaluate new commercially available cameras that could serve the same role; we might be able to get a loaner from Andor. ---- === Updates from ARC Board of Governors Meeting === Nancy recapped the Board meeting (attendees, purpose, presentations that are verbally given and provided to the Board members as reference material, etc.). She shared some of the slides presented to the Board: {{ :uc:2023_3.5m_report_-_for_users_commitee.pdf |}} Kevin asked why the median seeing value for the ecam measurements was better (smaller) than that for all of the optical instruments combined. Nancy checked with Russet after this meeting, who said ''I found ecam to be reasonably representative of the visible-light instruments, a little worse than ARCTIC, comparable to Agile and NA2 guider, better than dcam. But nowadays our visible-light log statistics are probably dominated by kcam, which does have re-imaging optics for the slitviewer that make the seeing look worse. That could also account for the broader peak of the night-log statistics. A quick check of the KOSMOS tab from the seeing statistics says that yes, there are only 5 sub-arcsecond log entries for KOSMOS from the whole year.'' ---- === 2023 Q4 3.5m scheduling === We have a some unassigned time (OPEN or DD02) remaining in Q4. Please follow the usual channels for requesting any of this time (i.e. please email Russet, Amanda, Ben, Nancy and your institutional scheduler when submitting requests, and provide a proposal cover page if you don't already have a program scheduled for the current quarter. ---- === 2024 Q1 3.5m scheduling === The institutional allocations were mailed out recently, and proposals will be due shortly before Thanksgiving. ---- === 2023 Q4 0.5m scheduling === There is not much open time remaining in the Q4 ARCSAT schedule. ---- === Future Meetings === APO will once again have a booth at the January AAS meeting; in 2024 the meeting will be in New Orleans. We hope that many 3.5m users will present results enabled by observations made at APO, and that we can get some help staffing the booth. Nancy reiterated that if we want to do something to celebrate the 30th anniversary of APO in 2024, we need to start planning soon. This was discussed at the ARC Board meeting but no final decisions were made. ---- === ACTION ITEMS === Open action items from previous meetings: * None ---- === All Other Business === We received a request for observations of T Coronae Borealis (T CrB), a recurrent nova; the next eruption is expected to be in Q1-Q2 2024! See this page for more details: [[https://www.aavso.org/news/t-crb-pre-eruption-dip]]. The head of AAVSO contacted us to ask if anyone could take NIR spectra, which would be particularly useful. ---- === Next meeting === The next meeting will be on December 5 at 10:30 MST. ---- ===== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 10/03/2023 ===== ---- Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Derek Buzasi (FGCU), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Misty Bentz (GSU), Mukremin Kilic (OU), Russet McMillan (APO), Ben Williams (UW), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), John Wilson (UVa), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Adam Kowalski (CU), Eric Bellm (UW) === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === * NAPG - no report * UVa - nothing to report; we circulated requests for users to provide science highlights * NMSU - nothing to report * BYU - nothing to report * Seattle - thanks for help with recent site visit; we are still working out bugs related to aligning slit masks * Washington - nothing to report * Georgia State - nothing to report * Colorado - nothing to report * Oklahoma - nothing to report * Wyoming - nothing to report * JHU - nothing to report * FGCU - nothing to report other than having had bad weather for recent observing run ---- === 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, 9/05/2023 – 10/02/2023 // 1) Overview September was a welcome quieter month at APO. The telescope has continued to work well after the shutdown. Weather has been very nice as well. Humidity/storms are starting to pickup and temps are starting to drop. Late September a visiting group of SDSS5 programmers descended upon APO for a software coding workshop hosted at APO/Sunspot. October will have two visiting classes: one from NMSU and one from UVa. Both are large classes and will fill up APO housing. 2) Operations 3.5m Telescope: - M3 rotation was repaired with a replacement high resolution encoder. A plan is also being developed for an upgrade path for the M3 rotation system. - Telescope balance continues to be refined 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. 0.5m Telescope: Filter wheel was replaced with a 7 position version that was donated by Oliver Fraser at UW. Many thanks for that! The telescope is working with a reduced filter set. Instruments: KOSMOS is experiencing random failures during diffuser wheel motion. Investigation is ongoing. ARCTIC diffuser’s rotator service had to be postponed, and will be rescheduled for a later date. Agile's TEC controls failed. Attempted repairs have so far been unsuccessful. The ARCES interorder light ratios (measure of scattered light in the instrument) are still excellent. DIS scattered light on the red camera is considered to be very good. The blue camera has been improving with the warmer weather; as temperatures cool, we expect the improvement to level off for the winter. ---- === Additional telescope and instrument discussion === We have had reasonable weather, although it has been very variable lately. In October into November we will be busy with class visits (NMSU followed by UVa followed by BYU). The M3 rotation issue was fixed. Efforts are still underway to improve the telescope balance and motion errors; next month we will tune the position integral derivatives (PID) parameters. We did restore the slew velocity settings and that seems to have improved things. We have a used 7-position filter wheel that was donated by Oliver Fraser at UW to replace the broken one on the 0.5m. It is now installed and working, and we thank UW for the donation! The instruments are generally behaving. The KOSMOS disperser wheel recently had an issue where the command will sometimes time out when moving from red to blue. We have a plan for fixing it when it gets stuck, and have strategies laid out for how to deal with it if the problem recurs. If it happens the Observing Specialist will suggest that long slit users should rotate the slit by 180 degrees, and MOS users should rotate to a different empty position. Regarding our recent cybersecurity efforts, we have been forced to clamp down on the outward facing computers. This has had no affect on operations (so far). We are looking at using Bit Defender, an enterprise-level service to lock down servers and prevent viruses. If anyone has an experience with using Bit Defender, please let Jamey know. Muk asked how frequently the site servers are backed up, noting that it was thanks to the daily backups that Gemini was able to recover from their cyberattack as quickly as they did. Jamey replied that our machines are backed up daily, and we have several levels of backups using a combination of on-site virtual machines and a cloud-based backup. ---- === Feedback request re: high cadence imaging === Nancy had sent the Users Committee members an email on 9/28/23 with several questions to discuss with their departmental users, particularly those who used Agile and/or use ARCTIC for high cadence imaging. **Feedback and inputs are requested by October 18:** * what is your desired time resolution for imaging? * how bright are your typical observing targets? * what is your desired imaging field of view? (ARCTIC max is ~ 7.8’, Agile was 2.2’) * do you anticipate your needs for high cadence imaging to change or increase in light of upcoming discoveries (e.g. with LSST)? Muk reported that he regularly used Agile and will have to see how ARCTIC works for him to determine whether it will meet his scientific needs. The larger FOV of ARCTIC will help, and the detector is more sensitive so he could go to shorter exposures. He asked if ARCTIC's timing is sync'ed to a GPS; the answer is no and it would not be straightforward to implement that. So the absolute timing for ARCTIC will not be what it was with Agile. ---- === Slides Request for ARC BoG Meeting === Nancy issued her annual request for science highlights (at least one from every ARC member institution and leasing partner!) for the ARC Board Meeting on November 4. Any file format is fine, but please make sure that each slide contains: researcher’s name and institution, a few bullets describing the science result and instrument used, and a graphic to complement the text. Users can send Nancy the slide directly or (preferably) UC reps can collect them and send them to her in a single packet. **The deadline for submitting slides is Monday October 23.** These are important for conveying to the Board members that their institution's investment in ARC and the 3.5m is worthwhile! ---- === Q4 3.5m scheduling === We have a moderate amount of unassigned time (OPEN or DD02) starting in early November. A lot of it is bright and or shorter than a full half-night. Users are reminded to check the schedule for their assigned time; if a program is allocated half-nights that are truncated due to sharing with a short monitoring program, they may have been scheduled for more half nights than they were expecting. ---- === Q4 0.5m scheduling === The schedule is almost ready to be published, with four different programs that requested time. As a reminder, the 7-position filter wheel is now available. ---- === Future Meetings === APO will once again have a booth at the January AAS meeting; in 2024 the meeting will be in New Orleans. We hope that many 3.5m users will present results enabled by observations made at APO, and that we can get some help staffing the booth. More details to come next month. Nancy reminded everyone that 2024 will mark the 30th anniversary of operations at APO and the 3.5m. In 2014 there was a big bash at the Visitors Center, which included science talks and many of the founding members coming back to visit. In 2019 we held a strategic planning meeting, in conjunction with a 25th anniversary celebration dinner. //Do we want to do anything for the 30th anniversary?// The ARC Board Chair requested that Nancy poll the Users Committee. Joanne reported that her Dean came with her for the 20th anniversary event and it was very successful, enabling her to become a leasing partner. Misty attended both of last two celebrations and thought it would be fun to do more of a party (like in 2014). It would be a great opportunity to show off the facilities, particularly if we could get administrators from the ARC institutions to attend. Derek agreed. Kevin didn't think that JHU would attend such an event. Chip shared UWY's experience of the WIRO 30th anniversary celebration; he thought it was a good celebration event and it helped administrators to see facility. He made a video that he continues to show as needed; Russet thought this would be a good opportunity to update our out-of-date videos. ---- === ACTION ITEMS === Open action items from previous meetings: None New action items from this meeting: * UC reps: solicit input from users re: high time resolution imaging needs; feedback due to Nancy on 10/18 * UC reps: collect science highlight slides from users; send to Nancy by 10/23 ---- === All Other Business === None. ---- === Next meeting === The next meeting will be on November 7 at 10:30 MST. ---- ===== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 09/05/2023 ===== ---- 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. ---- === 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. ---- === 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! ---- === 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.** ---- === 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. ---- === 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. ---- === 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. ---- === 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. ---- === 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. ---- === Next meeting === The next meeting will be on October 3 at 10:30 MDT. ---- ===== APO 3.5-m Site Report, 07/27/2023 ===== ---- There was no Users Committee meeting in August, but we do have a site report from Jamey: //3.5-m Telescope and Instruments Highlights, 6/27/2023 – 7/31/2023 // 1) Overview APO weather for July has not been very monsoon-like. We have had relatively few thunderstorms and some nice clear skies. There is a forest fire near APO that started on July 18. The "Apple Tree Fire" has grown to 270 acres and is approximately 4 miles southeast of APO. The USFS is using a “Confine and Contain” management approach to this fire, which means that the fire is being allowed to burn, with the USFS crews on site to limit fire behavior. Smoke from this fire has impacted some observing during the past two weeks. July was a quiet month for class visits compared to June; we had one REU group visiting in the middle of the month. Telescope shutdown started on 7/26/23, and recoating of M1 is on track for the week of August 7th at the Lowell Discovery Telescope outside of Flagstaff. 2) Operations 3.5m Telescope: a failure of the M3 rotation drive system occurred. Parts are on order to restore the full motion of M3. 0.5m Telescope: Issues with the filter wheel motion are believed to be the root cause of the recent problems. The filter wheel is a legacy piece of equipment from a company that has gone out of business, therefore finding spares is difficult. If no spares are found the filter wheel will have to be replaced with more modern hardware. KOSMOS is being warmed up for shutdown to do a vacuum cycle with a getter recharge. The ARCTIC diffuser rotator service had to be postponed, and will be rescheduled for a later date. Agile clock sync card is being reset manually as needed. The instrument thermoelectric cooler controls failed recently. Princeton Instruments will no longer support the camera or controller hardware. We are working to find and order surplus equipment in an attempt to repair it. Echelle interorder light ratios (measure of scattered light in the instrument) are still quite good but are declining again in the warmer weather. DIS scattered light on the red camera improved dramatically recently (attributed to a detector partial warm-up) and is currently considered to be very good, however, blue is still considered bad. 3) Other Shutdown preparation work was ongoing throughout the month. ---- === Next meeting === The next meeting will be on September 5 at 10:30 am MDT. ---- ===== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 06/27/2023 ===== ---- Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Russet McMillan (APO), Denise Stephens (BYU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Ben Williams (UW), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Sarah Tuttle (UW), John Wilson (UVa), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy) === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === * NAPG - no report * FGCU - no report * Seattle - Joanne's research group is working on KOSMOS data reduction routines with the goal of helping people do long slit reductions with pyVista and IRAF. She will write everything up, including how to handle data reduction for observations made using slit masks. She got data from a colleague at UW and plans to do a side-by-side comparison of data reduced with the different software packages. * BYU - nothing to report * Wyoming - nothing to report * Georgia State - nothing to report * UVa - nothing to report * JHU - nothing to report * Colorado - no report * Oklahoma - no report * NMSU - no report * Washington - no report ---- === 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, 6/6/2023 – 6/26/2023 // 1) Overview APO weather for June has been variable, with some thunderstorms and some very nice clear skies. June has been busy so far this month. Two training groups have come and gone with the third coming in the upcoming week. Instrument teams have visited and had some successes as well. The end of June and July will be busy as we prepare for summer shutdown. 2) Operations 3.5m telescope: operated nominally over the past few weeks. 0.5m telescope: issues with camera control and instrument drivers are being investigated. KOSMOS: has been stable since the last report. ARCTIC: the diffuser rotator service had to be postponed; it will be rescheduled for a later date. Agile: the clock sync card is being reset manually as needed. Echelle: the inter-order light ratios (measure of scattered light in the instrument) are still quite good but are declining again with the warmer weather. DIS: scattered light is improving slowly as expected, however, the blue channel is still considered by the APO staff to be poor and the red is considered borderline usable. 3) Other Test fit of the mirror support system was done at Lowell last week and parts were left in the chamber under vacuum in anticipation of the upcoming recoating. The schedule is on track for the July/August shutdown and mirror recoating dates. Repairs and maintenance are ongoing for various site metrology units (dewpoint and dust sensors). ---- === Additional telescope and instrument discussion === We normally get telescope motion errors around this time of year as the telescope warms up. The mitigation strategy that Bill and Russet devised seems to be working well as there have been no issues so far. Regarding the Agile sync card issue described in the above report, operationally this means that the first exposure in a series may have a problem and the observing specialist would have to restart things. We are seeing this issue roughly 1-2 times per week. For an ARCSAT update, Denise reports that FlareCam has been working great but BYUCam has not. Bill found a problem with the BYUCam filter wheel that may have been responsible for the instrument crashes, and he will test this when he has time (probably not for quite a while). Russet reported a recent potential issue with FlareCam, possibly condensation. This could be heat related given how hot it has been the past few days but it should get cooler tomorrow and this issue will hopefully go away. ---- === KOSMOS slits update === We will be delivering 28 slits, 4 of each of the following widths (3 mounted positions and a spare): 0.8, 1.0, 1.3, 1.6, 2, 5, and 20 arcseconds. **If anyone needs any other slit widths, let us know NOW.** Sarah expects to be sending these new slits to APO in mid-August so they could be available when we come out of shutdown. For those who have had challenges with the KOSMOS bias levels: Sarah is hoping to resolve this by end of shutdown. She has a few experiments to try during shutdown and will update users as changes get made. She intends to save a backup of its current state so that it will be completely reversible if a user needs the instrument in its current configuration (e.g. to complete a dataset in a self-consistent manner). ---- === Instrumentation update === John Wilson gave a status update on the new echelle spectrograph, which is currently in the conceptual design phase. The hope that we can have a lot of community engagement with the development of the instrument. The broad goal is to develop a replacement for ARCES, which has been a tremendous workhorse instrument for the 3.5m users for the past 20 years, to serve user needs for another 20 years. Work is underway on a conceptual design, with the goal of producing a high throughput spectrograph that operates from 350-1000 nm using state-of-the-art techniques for building it. The nominal resolution is expected to be similar to that of ARCES: R ~ 30k or higher. We foresee a white pupil spectrograph design (most echelles in the last 20 years have moved to this) with dual arms, one for the blue portion and one for the red. This enables us to tailor the cross disepersion and camera prescriptions for both spectral ranges. We are planning an atmospheric dispersion corrector to address light loss at the edges of the bands and tip-tilt image stabilization to remove jitter introduced from both from atmospheric turbulence and telescope vibrations, along with a slit mechanism and slit viewer camera. One open question is whether there is community interest in having a 2-slice image slicer. If one imagines having a circular spot of the target at the slit, the slicer would divide the spot into 2 halves and enables us to double the resolution (with the high res mode getting to ~ 60k). The design team wants to get a sense from community regarding whether such a mode would be of interest since it has ramifications for detector sampling. **Please consider this and talk to your users and provide feedback to Nancy.** We also plan to develop and deliver a data reduction software suite. In terms of current activities, we recently took one half-night to use DSSI for high cadence sampling images at the NA2 port to characterize how the image spots move around at high cadence. This allows us to say something about the predicted efficacy of a tip-tilt system down to about ~ 27 Hz. Additionally, Randy Hammond from the JHU Instrument Development Group is coming to APO in July to examine NA1 port and telescope structure. A science tiger team has been stood up and had one meeting so far; the purpose of that group is to provide guidance regarding what the community's desires are, have a place to vet ideas, etc. As for near term goals, we are currently in the conceptual design phase and hope to have a Conceptual Design Review by the end of CY23 or early 2024. We may also have a refined survey of the user community for people to weigh in on science needs. To reiterate, the instrument development team is really interested in getting feedback and engagement from the ARC community so that they can deliver an instrument that meets the needs of the community. As a more practical requirement, the funding environment for instrumentation is challenging and we will need to develop well thought out science cases to pursue funding opportunities. Chip indicated that having an R~60k mode would enable lots of science, for example stellar abundance work like Caty Pilachowski at Indiana University is doing. Kevin countered that for solar or giant type stars there is no scientific advantage of R~60k over R~30k. ---- === Q2-Q3 3.5m scheduling === There is no open time left in Q2 or Q3. Shutdown and recovery are potential areas of concern and programs that are scheduled immediately after shutdown are at risk in the event that we need extra engineering time at the end of shutdown. ---- === Q2-Q3 0.5m scheduling === Q3 ARCSAT proposals are due today; BYUCam will not be available in Q3. We will share updates with users if we learn any more about the aforementioned FlareCam issues. ARCSAT will not available during the 3.5m shutdown. ---- === Training update === Nancy mentioned three items: - We are aware that the list of trained individuals on the APO web site is outdated. We have been maintaining a separate list and will be merging that with the online list to ensure that the information presented online is current. - For those who come to APO for training visits, please urge all training participants to complete the evaluation form provided by Nancy. We strive to continually improve our training offerings but we need to hear from recent trainees about what worked well and what can be improved. - We are expecting at least three class visits during Q4, maybe more. **All institutions planning to bring classes to APO in Q4 should let us know ASAP so that we can prepare and begin to head off potential schedule conflicts.** ---- === June AAS meeting recap === The June 2023 AAS meeting in Albuquerque was a success. We have new backdrops and banners for the booth, which looked really nice, and people liked the swag we gave out. The talk about APO that Nancy gave in the special session about astronomy in New Mexico was well received and generated interest, questions, and potential opportunities for new collaborations. ---- === Annual Request to Update Publication Record === **Please send Nancy any references for 3.5m-related publications (anything published from Jan 1 2022 to now). The deadline is July 31.** 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 2022 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." ---- === ACTION ITEMS === Open action items from previous meetings: * Nancy: track down missing ARCTIC data reduction scripts for wiki. -> OPEN. Making progress on it this week. * UC reps: please notify your department members of the July 31 deadline for sending Nancy listings of papers from January 1, 2022 to present that made use of 3.5m and/or ARCSAT data. -> OPEN New action items from this meeting: * UC reps: remind your users to let us know ASAP if they need any KOSMOS slit widths that are not listed in the planned set to be delivered in August. * UC reps: ask your users to review the instrumentation notes above and provide Nancy with feedback if they have any. * UC reps: ask your institutional colleagues to notify us ASAP if they are planning to bring a class to APO in Q4. ---- === All Other Business === None. ---- === Next meeting(s) === The August meeting, which would be scheduled for August 1, will be canceled as it will be in the middle of summer shutdown. Therefore our next meeting will be on September 5, and we will use that opportunity to discuss our return to operations in late August at the conclusion of the summer shutdown. The meeting schedule for the remainder of CY 2023 will stay on the first Tuesday of the month at 10:30 MT; let Nancy know if you have any conflicts. ---- ===== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 06/06/2023 ===== ---- Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Gordon MacDonald (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Eric Bellm (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Misty Bentz (GSU), Ben Williams (UW), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Russet McMillan (APO) === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === * JHU - nothing to report * UVa - nothing to report * Georgia State - nothing to report * NMSU - Eric is glad to be able to attend UC meetings once again, otherwise nothing to report * Seattle - Joanne reports that her team had a wonderful visit to APO in May. They brought 3 students from Seattle University and 4 from Saint Martin's University, along with SMU astronomer Andrea Kunder who needed to be trained. Thanks to Russet, Candace, and Amanda for all their help with the training and the implementation of new KOSMOS slit masks. The weather and telescope both cooperated and 4 of the 5 masks worked well. While there was a learning curve for getting the masks made, they learned that one can reliably make masks using positions from Gaia. Joanne is typing up her notes (along with Amanda's notes on how to align the masks) with the goal of providing a cookbook for how to make KOSMOS masks that we can post on the wiki. We will make sure that Bill, Russet and Joe Burchett also have an opportunity to review/contribute to the cookbook. * FGCU - nothing to report other than some recent bad weather (sent by email) * Colorado - no report * Oklahoma - nothing to report * Washington - nothing to report * BYU - nothing to report * Wyoming - nothing to report * NAPG - no report ---- === 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, 5/1/2023 – 6/5/2023 // 1) Overview APO weather for May was variable; we had some thunderstorms, and some very nice clear skies. May was the quiet month before the June rush arrives. In May we had one class visit and one visiting instrument team on site. June will be a very busy month at APO with three different class visits and two visits from instrument teams. 2) Operations 3.5m telescope: operated nominally over the past month. 0.5m telescope: issues with camera control and instrument drivers are being worked on. KOSMOS: upgrades were implemented for the umbilical hose to further limit any issues from the LN2 vent. ARCTIC: the diffuser rotator service had to be postponed; it will be rescheduled for a later date. Agile: the timing board was swapped, but the sync issue is still being investigated as the board swap did not eliminate the issue. Echelle: the inter-order light ratios (measure of scattered light in the instrument) are still quite good but are declining again with the warmer weather. DIS: scattered light is improving slowly as expected, however, the blue channel is still considered by the APO staff to be poor and the red is considered borderline usable. 3) Other The mirror support system to hold our 3.5m mirror in the LDT coating chamber is being manufactured at APO. Plans are continuing for the scheduled August recoating at Lowell. Repairs and maintenance are ongoing for various site metrology units (dewpoint and dust sensors). ---- === Additional telescope and instrument discussion === June is going to be a busy month with multiple groups visiting, as indicated in the above report. Russet reports that recent engineering data with DIS show that the red side is looking a bit better and is "kinda usable," although the throughput is about half as good as it was last month (which was already much lower than where it should be). The blue channel is still poor. To make these determinations she used DIS to observe a standard star, a planetary nebula to assess the broadening of emission lines, and the recent supernova in M101 (to get observations of it with as many APO instruments as possible). To reiterate from last month, ** summer shutdown will start on July 26 and the anticipated return to science is August 22 ** (although that could slip by several days if the weather during engineering recovery is poor or if the coating process takes more time than anticipated). Last Friday APO hosted a visit from the new NMSU Provost. A site visit is helpful for our institutional administrators to see the nature of the facility and learn more about their research investment. Some institutional representatives will have an opportunity to visit APO this November in conjunction with the ARC Board of Governors meeting, but we would welcome other visits from institutional administrators if there is ever a need or desire to schedule one. ---- === KOSMOS update === We have received several reports of scattered light being a problematic issue for certain types of observations with KOSMOS. We have been in contact with the affected users and have a meeting scheduled to discuss it and learn more about it next week; a mitigation plan will be forthcoming after that. This concern has been prioritized and we look forward to gaining a better understanding of the problem next week. ---- === Q2 3.5m scheduling === There is some unassigned time at end of June: 1 unencumbered dark B half (21 June) and 1 grey partial A half (23 June) adjacent to sunset APOLLO observations. Users are encouraged to request this time if they can make use of it (particularly those who have been weathered out recently). As a reminder, users should include Ben, Russet, Amanda, Nancy and their institutional scheduler on all schedule related emails. ---- === Q3 3.5m scheduling === The Q3 schedule is in progress and we expect to publish it in a few days. Challenges in building the Q3 schedule include a class visit in July, a visiting instrument run, and the fact that several users will be attempting to observe Venus in the pre-dawn hours. Due to the fact that Q3 is a short quarter because of the summer shutdown there will be very little DD or OPEN time available (and there could be even less if there are difficulties with summer shutdown or recovery). **UC reps: please urge your users to review the Q3 schedule and let us know immediately if there are errors**; it will be much more challenging to fix them later in the quarter since we will have very little flexibility in the schedule. ---- === Q2-Q3 0.5m scheduling === There is an open week from June 25 to July 1 but this is not scheduleable due to the fact that we will have a visiting instrument on 3.5m that will require all of the attention of the observing specialist. Once the Q3 3.5m schedule comes out we will issue a call for Q3 ARCSAT proposals. ARCSAT will be following the same shutdown schedule as the 3.5m, thus it will not be operating during summer shutdown. There have been some recent issues with BYUCam that we think we have traced to a hardware problem. We are currently encouraging people to use FlareCam and will include more information about the status of BYUCam in the Q3 call for proposals. ---- === Annual Request to Update Publication Record === **Please send Nancy any references for 3.5m-related publications (anything published from Jan 1 2022 to now). The deadline is July 31.** 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 2022 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." ---- === ACTION ITEMS === Open action items from previous meetings: * Nancy: track down missing ARCTIC data reduction scripts for wiki. -> OPEN. Making progress on it this week. * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q2 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it. -> OPEN * UC reps: Notify your users that we have funds to purchase slit masks for MOS runs with KOSMOS -> CLOSED * UC reps: Notify your users of the summer shutdown dates, and remind them when submitting their Q3 proposals that the return to science date is dependent on good weather during the recovery engineering time. -> CLOSED * UC reps: Have any department members who are planning to attend the summer AAS meeting and present APO-related science contact Nancy. -> CLOSED New action items from this meeting: * UC reps: please urge your users to review the Q3 schedule and let us know immediately if there are errors. * UC reps: please notify your department members of the July 31 deadline for sending Nancy listings of papers from January 1, 2022 to present that made use of 3.5m and/or ARCSAT data. ---- === All Other Business === None. ---- === Next meeting(s) === The next meeting will be on **Tuesday June 27, 10:30 am MDT.** This is one week earlier than our regular schedule of the first Tuesday of July to avoid Independence Day. By having the meeting in late June this will give people an opportunity to provide feedback on the summer schedule, open time, instruments, etc. before July. The August meeting, which would be scheduled for August 1, will be canceled as it will be in the middle of summer shutdown. The September meeting, on September 5, will be used to discuss our return to operations after summer shutdown. ---- ===== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 05/02/2023 ===== ---- Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Gordon MacDonald (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Eric Bellm (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Adam Kowalski (CU), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Ben Williams (UW) === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === * FGCU - no report * NAPG - no report * Seattle - Joanne is working with Joe Burchett (NMSU) and Bill (APO) on getting her MOS slits for KOSMOS designed and fabricated. The process is on schedule for her upcoming observing run. * BYU - nothing to report * Wyoming - no report * Oklahoma - email report from Muk: "We had a fantastic class trip (5 undergrads + 1 TA + myself) in mid-April. The weather cooperated most of the time as well. This trip is always the highlight of our Observing Methods course. Thanks to Candace (especially), Russet, and Amanda for all their help." * Georgia State - nothing to report * UVa - nothing to report * Colorado - nothing to report from users. Thanks for discussing financials with CU budget person. * JHU - nothing to report * NMSU - nothing to report * Washington - nothing to report ---- === 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, 4/5/2023 – 5/1/2023 // 1) Overview APO weather for April was very spring like. Temperatures are increasing and the snow is mostly all melted. April was another busy month with one class (CU) on site in the middle of the month and two visiting instrument teams, one at the beginning of the month (LANL) and one at the end of the month (APOLLO). May will be little quieter with one class (late in the month) and one visiting instrument team (mid-month). 2) Operations 3.5m Telescope: operating nominally over the past month. 0.5m Telescope: The loaner camera from BYU (BYUCam) was successfully used this past month. KOSMOS saw a failure of its umbilical hose that vents heat and carries power and fiber lines to the instrument. LN2 from the dewar exhaust fell onto the plastic and caused it to shatter. Exhaust was redirected away from the umbilical and the umbilical hose was repaired. The ARCTIC diffuser rotator is planned to be serviced in May. The primary mirror cover baffle for the NA2 port has been installed. This now allows users to take dome flats with ARCTIC without a noticeable gradient across the field. Observing specialists will need to rotate the instrument relative to the telescope elevation for good flats. Users should coordinate with their observing specialist if they want to take dome flats. Agile sync failures are still being investigated and tracked. A control board swap is being planned. DIS scattered light is improving slowly, as expected. However, the blue side is still considered bad and red is considered borderline usable by APO. Nothing new to note for any of the other instruments. 3) Other Mirror coating system for LDT chamber design was completed. Material is being procured to build system. ---- === Additional telescope and instrument discussion === The moths are back at APO for the warm weather season :( The KOSMOS hose was repaired and the ARCTIC diffuser will be serviced soon to troubleshoot the rotation issue. The NA2 baffle fence has been installed and ARCTIC users can now take dome flats. BYUCam is performing nicely. Plans are proceeding to have M1 realuminized at Lowell Observatory this summer. The design for the mirror support system in the Lowell chamber is finished. Note added in proof: the dates for the summer shutdown have been finalized. ** Shutdown will start on July 26 and the anticipated return to science is August 22 ** (although that could slip by several days if the weather during engineering recovery is poor). ---- === Software update === Recall that a couple of months ago we heard an update about pyvista from Jon Holtzman (see notes here: [[uc:uc20230307_march_7_2023|APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 03/07/2023]]). Today Nancy provided a status updated on PyKOSMOS (from Jim Davenport at UW): The code is functional for most all reduction tasks, and being used by folks for lots of basic reduction. The methods in PyKOSMOS have already helped influence the maturing “specreduce” astropy package, and it is available on GitHub with moderate documentation: [[https://github.com/jradavenport/pykosmos]]. Jim has a student who is working towards making the project “pip installable”, for super easy setup for most python users. There will be some tweaks to the code in the next couple months due to this but hopefully it will be easier to install/use as a result. Next steps in the software development include algorithm improvements (e.g. “optimal” extraction), which probably will be part of astropy instead of PyKOSMOS, as well as a bunch of small APO/KOSMOS specific things (handling the variable biases better, fixing header issues, making a more robust automatic wavelength solution that account for internal sag w/ the rotation, building a library of standard calibration files for easier automated reduction, etc.). Jim currently does not have the bandwidth or personnel to work on these tasks but thinks that improving PyKOSMOS would be an amazing summer project for a grad student, and he would welcome support and/or collaboration from other ARC members. Adam Kowalski also mentioned that he also has a python module for spectral extraction that he is willing to share. ---- === Instrumentation update === The echelle science tiger team met once in April and discussed potential science drivers for the new instrument. Work is proceeding on the conceptual design and trade studies include the use of a dispersion corrector, spectropolarimetry, and options for tip-tilt correction; periodic feedback between the design team and science users is expected. There have been some discussions about options for multi-band and/or speckle imaging capabilities, and the DSSI team continues to test out their instrument on the 3.5m. If users are interested in learning more about its capabilities they should contact Nancy so she can facilitate that exchange of information. Joe Burchett (NMSU) was recently awarded a grant that will cover the fabrication costs of slit masks for those who are interested in trying out the MOS capabilities of KOSMOS. **UC reps: please make your users aware of this opportunity.** ---- === Q2 3.5m scheduling === There is some unassigned time at end of May: 1 unencumbered dark B half (19 May) and 2 grey A halves (24, 25 May) adjacent to sunset APOLLO observations. And also some time early June: June 1B and June 4B (both unencumbered but bright). Users are encouraged to request this time if they can make use of it (particularly those who have been weathered out recently). As a reminder, users should include Ben, Russet, Amanda, Nancy and their institutional scheduler on all schedule related emails. ---- === Q3 3.5m scheduling === Ben will be sending out the institutional allocations later this week. UC reps/institutional schedulers: please notify your users of the summer shutdown dates and remind Q3 proposers that the return to science date is contingent upon having good weather during the recovery period. ---- === Summer 2023 AAS meeting === The June 2023 AAS meeting will be held in Albuquerque on June 4-8 and we (APO) will have a booth at this meeting given its proximity to APO. Nancy is giving a talk about APO in a special session about astronomy and astronomy education in New Mexico. UC reps: please remind your department members that if anyone is going to be at the June AAS meeting and presenting APO-related science they should let Nancy know! ---- === ACTION ITEMS === Open action items from previous meetings: * Nancy: make sure that the APO web site gets updated to address the issues reported by Eric B. in December. Status: CLOSED. These issues were all addressed: * the wiki link on the 3.5m page still pointed to the old wiki - //this was fixed.// * the Search Site function on the APO home page does not work. //A notice was added to reflect the fact that this search tool will not work from computers outside of the APO VPN.// * the ToO policy is not easily found. //this was fixed.// * Nancy: get updated on pyKOSMOS and report to UC next month. -> CLOSED. * Nancy: track down missing ARCTIC data reduction scripts for wiki. -> OPEN * UC reps: notify your KOSMOS users that counts > 150k are not physical. -> CLOSED * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q2 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it. -> OPEN New action items from this meeting: * UC reps: Notify your users that we have funds to purchase slit masks for MOS runs with KOSMOS * UC reps: Notify your users of the summer shutdown dates, and remind them when submitting their Q3 proposals that the return to science date is dependent on good weather during the recovery engineering time. * UC reps: Have any department members who are planning to attend the summer AAS meeting and present APO-related science contact Nancy. ---- === All Other Business === None ---- === Next meeting === The next meeting will be on **Tuesday June 6, 10:30 am MDT.** This will be during the week of AAS but since it appears that relatively few people from this group will be at the meeting, it should not present a major conflict. ---- ===== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 04/04/2023 ===== ---- Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Gordon MacDonald (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Eric Bellm (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Adam Kowalski (CU), Mukremin Kilic (OU), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Derek Buzasi (FGCU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Sarah Tuttle (UW), Ben Williams (UW) === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === * Seattle - nothing to report * NMSU - nothing to report * Wyoming - no report * Washington - nothing to report * BYU - nothing to report * Colorado - a user reported that the IRAF data reduction guides and scripts for ARCTIC (from Karen Kinemuchi) are not available through the wiki any more (referring to this page: [[http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/apo-wiki/doku.php?id=arctic]]). **Nancy will track this down and get the wiki updated.** * JHU - nothing to report * Oklahoma - Muk previously had some questions about the timing information in Agile image headers and Russet and Bill looked into it; Muk thanked them for their efforts. He is looking forward to his OU class visit next week (which will include Muk, a TA and 5 students) * Georgia State - nothing to report * FGCU - nothing to report * UVa - nothing to report * NAPG - no report ---- === 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, 3/7/2023 – 4/4/2023 // 1) Overview APO weather is shifting from wintery mix to more spring like. Temperatures are increasing and snow is melting. March was a busy month at APO with the UVa (DSSI) team, a class from CU that overlapped slightly, and the week-long KOSMOS work by UW. The month ended with a small team from LANL visiting to prepare for their upcoming run in early April. April will be a busy month as well, with two visiting instrument teams - one at the start and one towards the end of the month - and an OU class visit in the middle of the month. 2) Operations 3.5m Telescope: operating nominally over the past month. 0.5m Telescope: The loaner camera from BYU (BYUCam), a replacement for SurveyCam, is now available to the user community. Its performance is being confirmed. KOSMOS service is continuing with on-site and remote work by UW. The ARTIC diffuser is currently rotating as expected. Tests conducted after the cold temperature issue was reported have not shown the same issue. The Agile timestamps in the image headers were checked and are reliable as far as we can test them. Sync failures are still being investigated and tracked. DIS scattered light is improving slowly, as expected. However, the blue side is still considered bad and red is considered borderline usable by APO. The TripleSpec cart rotation underwent a full overhaul after a failure of its gear box. Nothing new to note for any of the other instruments. 3) Other Efforts are continuing on designing a system that would allow the 3.5m mirror to be coated in the LDT chamber. Support for Python 2 ended on 1/1/2020. With the conversion of TUI to Python 3, we are ending our support for TUI 2.6.1alpha2 and earlier software. Those versions will remain available for download, however, the observatory staff will not be able to troubleshoot if problems arise. All observers are encouraged to upgrade to the newest version of TUI, TUI 3.1.1, which was just released. All current and past versions can be found in the usual download location : [[http://www.apo.nmsu.edu/arc35m/TUIdownloads_ARC35m.html]] . ---- === Additional telescope and instrument discussion === March and April are busy months with numerous visitors coming to the site. BYUCam on ARCSAT is ready for community use. The Agile image timestamps are accurate but the sync issue is still being investigated. The ARCTIC diffuser rotation issue that was seen during cold temperatures has been fixed. The control software is not giving a valid rotation flag (i.e. when it is rotating at speed the flag is not registering). We recommend that users continue to use the instrument (with the diffuser rotation) as is. It looks like the rotation is still happening at proper speed; it may be slightly below the nominal 2 Hz threshold but until Bill can take it apart and clean it we won't know for sure. For this week, as long as the star's diffraction spikes are being smeared out it should be considered acceptable for science (if not, we recommend defocussing the instrument a bit). There is an issue with a ghost image in the TripleSpec data that Russet is investigating. We are meeting with Lowell Observatory engineers next week to discuss M1 realuminization. Users are urged to upgrade to python3 if they have not already done so, and to use the latest python3 version of TUI. Because python2 is no longer being supported we will not be able to support or troubleshoot the python2-based version of TUI any longer. ---- === KOSMOS update === When Sarah was at APO a couple of weeks ago she spent some time looking at the smear users were seeing in the overscan with bright lines. She played around with some voltages to check if it is due to a serial readout problem. Of note to all KOSMOS users, the way the detecter controller is currently working, it shows as being saturated at the ADC maximum, not the chip full well depth, meaning it will go up to 2^18 counts before it overflows. Somewhere between 150k-200k is the physical full well. She is still doing tests to quantify this, but **KOSMOS users should be aware that very high count levels (> 150k) are not physical.** Sarah got some help from a CTIO colleague who worked on COSMOS and got the information she needed so now she can test the voltages. The chip is currently optimized for a single amplifier but the goal is to be able to run it using one OR two amplifiers. The instrument is currently in a stable state and we will always leave it in its default state after testing. That said, users should notify their observing specialist and Sarah Tuttle if they have questions or encounter something out of the ordinary. Joanne is coming to APO in May and hopes to have the files ready for slit mask production by end of this week. She offered to test other slit masks if users have any additional masks that they would like to get tested. ---- === Q2 3.5m scheduling === There is some unassigned time at end of April: 3 A halves, 2 partials and 1 unencumbered. Users are encouraged to request this time if they can make use of it (particularly those who have been weathered out recently). As a reminder, users should include Ben, Russet, Amanda, Nancy and their institutional scheduler on all schedule related emails. ---- === Q2 ARCSAT scheduling === We are working out some final details on the Q2 ARCSAT schedule and will have it finalized and posted by the end of this week. ---- === ACTION ITEMS === Open action items from previous meetings: * Nancy: make sure that the APO web site gets updated to address the issues reported by Eric B. in December. Status: OPEN. There is one remaining issue that needs to be addressed: * the wiki link on the 3.5m page still pointed to the old wiki - //this was fixed.// * the Search Site function on the APO home page does not work. //A notice was added to reflect the fact that this search tool will not work from computers outside of the APO VPN.// * the ToO policy is not easily found. //We are working on a document// that we can post on the scheduling page to make this information more easy to locate. * Nancy: get updated on pyKOSMOS and report to UC next month. Status: OPEN. * UC reps: notify your users about the option of using pyvista (and/or some of the other packages listed above) for data reduction. -> CLOSED * UC reps: notify your users that Nancy is seeking 1-2 more echelle users to participate in the tiger team charged with firming up the science requirements for a new echelle spectrograph. -> CLOSED * UC reps: poll your department users and if there is a need for a remote training in option for Q2, notify Russet ASAP (within the next day or so). -> CLOSED * UC reps: remind your users that they should notify us if their plans change and they wish to forfeit their week of scheduled ARCSAT time. -> CLOSED New action items from this meeting: * Nancy: track down missing ARCTIC data reduction scripts for wiki. * UC reps: notify your KOSMOS users that counts > 150k are not physical. * UC reps: remind your users to review the Q2 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it. ---- === All Other Business === The June 2023 AAS meeting will be held in Albuquerque on June 4-8. Although we are not normally in the habit of having an exhibitor booth at the summer meetings, particularly after just having been at the preceding winter meeting, we (APO) will have a booth at this meeting given its proximity to APO. It represents an excellent opportunity to highlight exciting science results enabled by a New Mexico-based astronomical facility like APO. If anyone from our ARC member institutions or lease partners is planning to attend the June AAS meeting please let Nancy know so we can promote their work! ---- === Next meeting === The next meeting will be on **Tuesday May 2, 10:30 am MDT.** ---- ===== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 03/07/2023 ===== ---- Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Russet McMillan (APO), Gordon MacDonald (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Eric Bellm (UW), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Jon Holtzman (NMSU), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Sarah Tuttle (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa) === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === * JHU - nothing to report * Georgia State - nothing to report * UVa - nothing to report * Washington - nothing to report * BYU - nothing to report * Oklahoma - nothing to report (by email) * NAPG - no report * Wyoming - nothing to report * FGCU - nothing to report (by email) * Colorado - no report * NMSU - nothing to report * Seattle - nothing to report ---- === 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, 2/6/2023 – 3/6/2023 // 1) Overview APO is weathering the winter storms; it seems like we’ve had more snow this year compared to the previous couple years. Cold temperatures and snow have been sticking around for significant days through February. 2023 has been quiet thus far in terms of class or teams visiting the observatory, which is about to change this month. March will see the UVa (DSSI) team and CU class (K. France), which overlap slightly. We are also looking forward to a rescheduled UW visit for KOSMOS servicing, which we hope will happen the week of March 20th. 2) Operations The 3.5m and 0.5m telescopes have both performed as expected over the past month. TUI 3.1.0 is available for most common OS versions (MacOS, Windows, Linux); work on a Docker mode for TUI is progressing. KOSMOS is slated for service, with UW visiting APO the week of March 20th. The ARCTIC diffuser is not rotating in colder temperatures; investigations are underway. The Agile sync clock signal investigation is in progress as well. Failure rate is increasing. DIS scattered light is improving slowly as expected, however, blue is still considered by APO to be pretty bad and red is considered borderline usable. Nothing new to note on any of the other instruments. 3) Other Efforts are continuing for the design of a system that will allow the 3.5m mirror to be coated in the LDT chamber. ---- === Additional telescope and instrument discussion === The observatory has been hit with several snow storms that have significantly impacted observing over the past few weeks. The forecast is improving for the next week or so. March is shaping up to be a busy month: the UVa/DSSI team is here now, a CU class will be on site next week, and Sarah Tuttle will be here the week of March 20th for KOSMOS work. More visitors will be coming in Q2, so we expect to be remain quite busy through June. TUI work is continuing, with a Docker mode in the works. Instrument updates: * The ARCTIC diffuser has been acting up in cold weather; investigations into that issue are underway. * The issue of the Agile time stamps in the image headers being incorrect is actively being worked on. The issue is with the trigger signal that comes from the high speed/high accuracy clock that's in the ICC machine. For users, this might be manifested as an error message, or it could affect header information even if there is no error message. The image time stamps are intended to be accurate to 0.01 s but currently there is no way to test that because the other machines are less accurate. Users should assume that the exact time stamps in their Agile image headers are unreliable, although the length of exposures and the photometry are both still fine. It is really just the precise timing that is affected; this issue started in mid-January. * DIS scattered light is behaving as expected. * There is a current issue with the TripleSpec instrument cart, which does not affect observing but does affect instrument fills during the day. As a result it could take longer to mount/unmount the instrument until the cart gets repaired; parts are on order. Work is proceeding for getting the 3.5m mirror ready for realuminization at Lowell this summer. We heard from KPNO that they will not be able to accommodate any external mirrors at their coating chamber this summer, so it's good that we decided to proceed with having the work done at Lowell. ---- === Data reduction software update === In response to last month's action item to provide an update on quick-look data reduction software (in that context, for KOSMOS), we discussed several software options. pyKOSMOS is still in development and we were unable to get a status update before this meeting; Sarah will keep trying. Jon Holtzman presented an overview of pyvista, which he has been developing for several years. pyvista is intended to be a general purpose software package for reducing astronomical data (imaging and spectroscopy), although it was developed with APO instruments in mind. It is not intended to have a lot of fancy bells and whistles, but it does have a pedagogical aspect to it (i.e. it is not a black box) and is used to teach both undergraduates and graduate students about data reduction. Interested users can read more about it here: https://pyvista.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ and are welcome to give it a try; please contact Jon (holtz@nmsu.edu) with any questions. Several people at NMSU are using it to reduce their ARCES, KOSMOS, and DIS data; the photometry and TripleSpec packages are not done or fully documented yet. The spectroscopy reduction code builds off existing calibration spectra, and can include automated line identification. It propagates uncertainties through the pipeline and can display S/N images. Other options for reducing spectrograph data include PypeIt (developed by X. Prochaska with a significant number of supporting helpers) and PyReduce. Eric B. reported that he tried to get PypeIt working with DIS data and had limited success; if someone wants to build on what he started it is possible, but it's a complex piece of software. Kevin reported that his group is using CERES to reduce ARCES data: https://github.com/rabrahm/ceres. ---- === Instrumentation update === Nancy will be providing updates on various instrumentation initiatives every two months, or when otherwise needed. Regarding Ocotillo, Sarah reported that she and her team are preparing for the Preliminary Design Review. They are conducting in-lab testing to finalize some hardware preferences. Caleb is putting together the fiber feed connections for the NA2 port. For the multi-object portion with robotically positioned fibers as well as for the integral field unit, traditionally one would build fiber bundles. Sarah, working with some collaborators at LBNL, is currently exploring the option of using cleaved fibers that would then be bundled, which would keep the throughput high across the entire bandpass. She will notify the Users Committee once they are preparing to do the PDR with the observatory staff and will provide summary documents to the Users Committee after that. Plans for a multi-band imager are still being formulated, and require discussions with the UVa instrument team to flesh out how such an instrument would fit into their planned progression of instrument development efforts. Regarding a new echelle spectrograph, a small team from JHU and UVa is working on a conceptual design. In parallel with that, Nancy is assembling a small tiger team of active echelle users to outline the science requirements that will flow down to instrument performance requirements, and to help develop the science case(s) that will be used to pursue external funding for the instrument. She is seeking 1-2 more echelle users for the tiger team, so Users Committee members were asked to forward this information to their department members and let her know if they have any recommendations or volunteers who would be willing to serve on this team. ---- === Q1 3.5m scheduling === There is one unassigned date remaining in the Q1 schedule (Mar 27B), for which we have already received a request. High priority requests will still be considered; a decision on how to allocate this time will likely be made next week. ---- === Q2 3.5m scheduling === The Q2 schedule is in draft form and is nearly complete; we expect to be able to publish it before the end of this week. In Q2 we are expecting 3 visiting instrument runs (with 2 different instruments) along with 4 on-site class groups. There were not too many programs that requested numerous partial nights (e.g. for a monitoring program) but we did receive requests from quite a few programs requiring observing time for specific events on specific dates that cross the midnight (A/B half) boundary, which means there ended up being lots of partial nights in the schedule. We are awaiting answers to a couple of outstanding questions and then the schedule will be published. We only have one person signed up for the Q2 remote training opportunity that we offer for postdocs, research faculty, etc. so we may not offer a remote training in Q2. Despite our requests to receive notification about remote training needs well in advance of building the schedule (this information is conveyed every quarter in the allocation emails sent to the institutional schedulers), we generally receive these requests well after the schedule is made, which is problematic. **Users Committee: please poll your department users and if there is a need for a remote training option for Q2, notify Russet ASAP (within the next day or so).** ---- === Q1 ARCSAT scheduling === The Q1 ARCSAT schedule has some open slots. **UC reps: please remind your users that they should notify us if their plans change and they will not use their ARCSAT time.** We recognize that sometimes people make last-minute decisions based on weather and that's fine; we're asking that if someone decides to not make use of their entire week of scheduled time, they notify Russet, Nancy, and Ben. This can help us by avoiding unnecessary instrument changes and scheduling ARCSAT engineering time to fill the schedule gaps. ---- === ACTION ITEMS === Open action items from previous meetings: * Nancy: make sure that the APO web site gets updated to address the issues reported by Eric B. in December. Status: OPEN. There is one remaining issue that needs to be addressed: * the wiki link on the 3.5m page still pointed to the old wiki - //this was fixed.// * the Search Site function on the APO home page does not work. //A notice will be added to reflect the fact that this search tool will not work from computers outside of the APO VPN.// * the ToO policy is not easily found. //We are working on a document// that we can post on the scheduling page to make this information more easy to locate. * Nancy or Russet: get sample KOSMOS data from JHU user who reported scattered light issue. Status: OPEN. Russet will contact the user to troubleshoot this, and will include Sarah and Nancy. * Nancy: share communications plan re: new instrumentation with UC at next meeting. Status: CLOSED. * Nancy: get updated on pyKOSMOS and report to UC next month. Status: OPEN. * Nancy: notify Joanne of site restrictions regarding maximum number of people in visiting group. Status: CLOSED. New action items from this meeting: * UC reps: notify your users about the option of using pyvista (and/or some of the other packages listed above) for data reduction. * UC reps: notify your users that Nancy is seeking 1-2 more echelle users to participate in the tiger team charged with firming up the science requirements for a new echelle spectrograph. * UC reps: poll your department users and if there is a need for a remote training in option for Q2, notify Russet ASAP (within the next day or so). * UC reps: remind your users that they should notify us if their plans change and they wish to forfeit their week of scheduled ARCSAT time. ---- === All Other Business === None. ---- === Next meeting === The next meeting will be on **Tuesday April 4, 10:30 am MST.** ---- ===== APO 3.5-m Users Committee Meeting, 02/07/2023 ===== ---- Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Derek Buzasi (FGCU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Adam Kowalski (CU), Russet McMillan (APO), Mukremin Kilic (OU), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Eric Bellm (UW), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Ben Williams (UW), Caleb Wang (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa) === User feedback and comments from institutional representatives === * JHU - a user reported that the scattered light they were seeing in KOSMOS data taken during twilight was worse than what they saw with DIS. After some speculation of what could be causing this (e.g. scattering off the edges of the window?) we agreed that we need to get an example of what the user is seeing. **Nancy or Russet will contact the user and get example data files to try to diagnose this problem.** * UVa - nothing to report * FGCU - nothing to report * NAPG - no report * NMSU - no report * Seattle - nothing to report other than Joanne is intending to bring a class to APO towards the end of Q2 * Colorado - a user contacted Adam to express interest in getting an update on the echelle upgrade. They are curious about the process of information gathering for the design and asked whether large changes are still possible (e.g. the inclusion of spectropolarimetry, wavelength range, etc.). Nancy said that she is in the process of formulating a small tiger team to look at some of these issues from the science perspective. ** Nancy will develop a communications plan about instrumentation upgrades to share with the UC next month.** * Wyoming - nothing to report * Oklahoma - a user asked about the availability of quicklook reduction software for use with KOSMOS. ** Nancy will find out when pyKOSMOS is expected to be broadly available.** * Washington - nothing to report * Georgia State - nothing to report ---- === 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, 12/5/2022 – 2/5/2023 // 1) Overview Happy New Year! APO is weathering the winter storms - it seems like there has been more snow this year compared to the previous couple of years. The site has experienced cold temperatures and snow sticking around for a significant number of days. December and January were quiet in terms of class or instrument teams visiting the observatory. February will see the planning finalized for the UVa (DSSI team) and CU class (France), which are both scheduled to come in March with some slight overlap. We are also looking forward to a rescheduled UW visit for KOSMOS servicing, which we hope will happen in February. 2) Operations The 3.5m telescope as well as the 0.5m ARCSAT telescope have both performed as expected over the past two months. Of note for the 0.5m telescope: it will soon have a loaner FLI camera installed as a replacement for SurveyCam. The goal is to have it installed by the beginning of Q2. The FLI camera was provided by BYU for use at APO - thank you BYU! TUI 3.1.0 is available for most common OS versions (MacOS, Windows, Linux). The KOSMOS instrument is slated for servicing, with UW visiting APO for the work. A good news item related to KOSMOS is that the upgraded slit viewer shutters have not had any issues with cold temperature operations this winter. DIS scattered light is improving slowly, as expected. However, the blue channel is still considered bad and the red channel is considered borderline usable by APO. There is nothing new to note for any of the other instruments. 3) Other Efforts are continuing for the design of a system that will allow the 3.5m mirror to be coated in the LDT chamber. ---- === Additional telescope and instrument discussion === Jamey indicated that he is open to suggestions for new formats or content on his monthly site report; if people have requests please let him or your UC rep know. The observatory is currently experiencing horizontal snow (!). There was a major rockslide (more like rock-fall) on HW 82 coming up from Alamogordo, just before the tunnel. This closed the road for 4 days while NMDOT worked to clear the road (which including pushing some rocks over the edge into the canyon). This meant that it took an extra 1.5 hrs to get to APO from Alamogordo. Fortunately we did not have any LN2 deliveries scheduled during the closure. Here are some pictures: {{:uc:49d598be-0896-4941-9785-c3b2469fabe5.png?linkonly|Pic1}} {{ :uc:586b8535-be95-499a-ad45-55f4ae039510.png?linkonly|Pic2}} {{ :uc:259759d5-906a-4d4e-9221-2b96ce8a84bd.png?linkonly |Pic3}}. The DSSI group is coming in early March, and a CU class is arriving right after that. We are trying to schedule a KOSMOS servicing visit from Sarah Tuttle to address the CTE issue and cleanup of readouts. DIS measurements made on sky last night showed that the peak brightness is 10% of what it was last year. In the red one can sum pixels; the net effect is like being out of focus. With 1x2 binning, we are seeing a peak ~ 40% of where it was a year ago. Adam asked if the DIS contamination will be better by the time of the CU class visit, since Kevin France (class instructor) is a DIS user. Russet replied that the red will be noticeably better since this issue is temperature dependent and it evolves more quickly in warmer weather. The blue side is coming up to point where it will turn around and start improving, but we probably won't see much change in the next month; we do expect to see continued improvement through May. The TUI upgrade to python3 is available for user download and is probably most important for Linux users (of which there are quite a few at OU, JHU, and UWy). Users should install and use the new software and let us know if they have any problems with it. ---- === KOSMOS update === Nothing to report beyond what is stated above. ---- === Q1 3.5m scheduling === There are several unassigned dates remaining in the Q1 schedule: Feb 9 (short half, in bright time), Feb 20B (dark, unencumbered), and Mar 27B. [Note added in proof; only Mar 27B remains.] ---- === Q2 3.5m scheduling === All schedulers have received their allocations for Q2; requests are due 2/24. Schedulers: please include Amanda when sending in your requests. We blocked out several nights in early April for a visiting instrument; during that period only the middle 6 hours of the night will be available. We will try to schedule Agile or ARCES during that time to avoid instrument changes. Joanne stated that she plans to request 2 nights in late May or June that are scheduled close together so that she can bring class up to observe with KOSMOS and ARCTIC. She needs to know personnel limits for the site (she anticipates bringing 5-7 students and several helpers). **Nancy will confirm the numbers with the operations crew offline and will report back to Joanne.** ---- === Q1 ARCSAT scheduling === There is some open time available in March. The Observing Specialists are getting trained on the Shelyak so that it can eventually be made available to the broader user community. We received a long-term loan of an FLI imaging camera (to replace SurveyCam) from BYU and we hope to have it available and ready for use in Q2. ---- === AAS 241 Meeting Recap === Nancy provided a brief summary of how things went at the APO booth we had at the AAS 241 meeting in Seattle. As a reminder, the goals of having a booth were to raise the visibility of the facility, talk to others in the industry, showcase the science results enabled by observations at APO, provide a center for ARC members to connect with each other, and promote the open positions at the observatory since we are currently hiring. The general feeling was that it was a very successful meeting, and we achieved most of the aforementioned goals. Bill made some important face-to-face connections with people at other observatories as well as vendors from PlaneWave and FingerLakes, and Jamey highlighted the importance of the booth for talking to students (which could help with recruitment for the graduate programs of the ARC institutions). A number of students inquired about internship possibilities and short-term positions (e.g. during a gap year), so we ought to think more about whether that is something we would want to implement. Several UC reps said that their students were excited about the booth and that it was useful for raising visibility of the facility. ---- === ACTION ITEMS === Open action items from previous meetings: * Nancy: start investigations re: short wavelength throughput (climate data, other facilities). No news. Going forward we are tabling this action item and will not be reporting on it since we are in the process of sorting out the realuminization plans for M1, which takes priority. Status: TABLED. * Nancy: make sure that the APO web site gets updated to address the issues reported by Eric B. in December. Status: OPEN. There were several issue that needed to be addressed: * the wiki link on the 3.5m page still pointed to the old wiki - //this was fixed.// * the Search Site function on the APO home page does not work. //Testing is ongoing to solve this;// it appears to be a VPN issue for the site web server (i.e., it works for people at APO but does not work for people accessing the web pages from off-site locations). * the ToO policy is not easily found. //We are working on a document// that we can post on the scheduling page to make this information more easy to locate. * UC reps: distribute information about the AAS meeting and our request for participation/help at the booth. Status: CLOSED. * Nancy: send out a new calendar invitation with the UC meeting dates for 2023. Status: CLOSED. New action items from this meeting: * Nancy or Russet: get sample KOSMOS data from JHU user who reported scattered light issue * Nancy: share communications plan re: new instrumentation with UC at next meeting * Nancy: get updated on pyKOSMOS and report to UC next month * Nancy: notify Joanne of site restrictions regarding maximum number of people in visiting group ---- === All Other Business === None. ---- === Next meeting === The next meeting will be on **Tuesday March 7, 10:30 am MST.** ----