apo-wiki

Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Misty Bentz (GSU), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Russet McMillan (APO), Mukremin Kilic (OU), Eric Bellm (UW), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Ben Williams (UW)Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Derek Buzasi (FGCU)

• UVa - nothing to report
• NMSU - nothing to report
• Washington - nothing to report
• Wyoming - Chip had just returned from APO, where he brought 6 graduate students and 1 undergraduate for an observing/training trip. Candace did a great job with the training and they all had a wonderful experience.
• Georgia State - nothing to report
• Oklahoma - - nothing to report
• BYU - nothing to report
• Colorado - nothing to report
• FGCU - nothing to report
• Seattle - nothing to report
• JHU - nothing to report
• NAPG - no report

The detailed site report is included below, followed by additional information discussed during today's meeting.

3.5-m Telescope and Instruments Highlights, 8/2/2022 - 9/5/2022

0) Overview

APO is no longer under any staffing or indoor masking restrictions from the State of New Mexico due to COVID. The COVID vaccination policy for ARC/APO has not changed.

Weather for August has been very monsoonal.

September is shaping up to be a very busy month at APO on the 3.5m side: Wyoming class 9/2-5, Washington class 9/17-21 and two visiting instrument teams from Los Alamos National Laboratory and University of Virginia.

1) Telescope

The 3.5m telescope summer shutdown is over and the telescope was returned to service without major issues. Mirrors were washed, drive systems were cleaned and worn rollers were replaced along with other miscellaneous annual maintenance tasks.

The telescope secondary issue has not recurred since power board replacement; the system will continue to be monitored.

2) Instruments

KOSMOS: Commissioning activities are continuing; the instrument is still being offered on a shared risk basis. A replacement shutter for the slitviewer arrived was replaced over shutdown. Flux was decreased for the internal lamps again and the flux levels are being evaluated. Work continues on prototype multi-object masks at both NMSU and UW shops; several programs made use of these prototypes and lessons learned are being applied to the next round of test masks.

DIS: Servicing of the instrument is tentatively being planned for early October to attempt to resolve the ice droplets on the red camera.

TripleSpec: Cold, operational and performing nominally.

Agile: Cold, operational and performing nominally. There is a known issue with missing observatory and WCS cards from the headers that we are trying to track down. This problem seemed to originate about the time we converted and moved the hub35m to a new server.

Echelle: Echelle inter-order light was slowly decreasing with the warmer ambient temperatures, but increased with cooler monsoon temperatures; the ratios are still quite good.

NICFPS: The instrument is performing nominally with the occasional need to reset the controller due to corrupted images, and previous cautions about rotator angle.

ARCTIC: Cold, operational and performing nominally.

3) ARCSAT: Observing started up again after summer shutdown. We had some pointing and software issues at startup but it has been working well since then.

The weather at APO has been very monsoonal over the past month. September is going to be a busy month with two visiting classes, one from UWy (they were there in early September) and the other from UW, and two visiting instrument teams, The summer shutdown was completed and we are now back to normal operations. All routine shutdown maintenance activities were completed and the issue with the secondary mirror has not come back so hopefully it is resolved. Once again the 3.5m technical and operational staff did a fantastic job of conducting a successful shutdown and returning the telescope to science operations without a hitch. DIS servicing is currently scheduled for October. Ed Leon, the 3.5m electronics technician, retired on September 1. Nancy expressed her appreciation for his efforts and dedication to APO and the 3.5m over the past decade. The job ad for his position is now posted (https://jobs.nmsu.edu/postings/47642) - please share this widely and encourage people to apply!

summary shutdown

reduced lamps - put ND filter in, will affect flat fields and arc lamps (but need those more frequently because of instrument flexure), don't want to dim those any further. Recommending use truss lamps if still saturate. Trying to see if can address brightness of internal quartz lamps but not arcs, balance needs of narrow vs wide slits but not there yet. optimizing arc lamps for the moment.

new shutter

new slits end of the month

Chip - recommendations? NC to post synthesis of dialog to wiki

seasonal cycle

multi object still coming

problems w/Secondary have not been recurring - hope it was resolved by actual change in hardware tertiary problem - still vulnerable to possible recurrence but not a frequent issue telescope came back together and had good luck during initial part of recovery period, expect good pointing w/all instruments,

Only 1 remaining unassigned Sep 30A no official requests yet although someone from JHU expressed interest, we told them to submit official request though Kevin, unsure if he will endorse may use as overflow for Q4

When Q4 comes out check Q3 schedule to see if anything unassigned . 90% of programs done, remaining take anther 90% of work. No on site classes. several monitoring programs requesting quarter nights. Publish by end of this week. Please copy Amanda Townsend on all schedule related emails ajt@apo.nmsu.edu

Free time coming up after “Busy” (after 9/18) - remainder of month is unassigned. Once Q4 schedule comes out will post call for ARCSAT. Derek may request late Sept

ARC BoG meeting.

AAS meeting - lots of UW users, Derek, Joanne, Sticker to give ppl with posters to indicate APO data, chip those with undergrads looking for grad programs, small recruitment, Misty - start Google Doc where ppl can list their APO-related posters and talks, would help w/exchange. Abstract deadline coming up.

Later: need help w/booth

Open action items from previous meetings:

• Nancy: start investigations re: short wavelength throughput (climate data, other facilities). Status: OPEN. Nancy reached out to some colleagues at other observatories to ask about short wavelength performance degradation of their optical coatings. She got some names from Bill and will contact those individuals next. The ongoing discussions about new coatings for the primary also relate to this issue so we will determine our coatings first before continuing to pursue this line of investigation.

• UC reps: notify your users of remaining open/DD time in Q3. → CLOSED

• UC reps: remind your users to send Nancy all publications through 2021 by August 31, 2022. → CLOSED

• Nancy: track down resources for KOSMOS flat fielding and post them.

New action items from this meeting:

xxx

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The next meeting will be on Tuesday October 4, 10:30 am MDT.