apo-wiki

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)

• 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. 'We 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 - bringing class out towards end of Q2
• Colorado - user requested Zoom with him - interested in general update for echelle upgrade - gave info from Board rep - curious about information we're gathering for design and whether large changes are still possible - spectropolarimetry, wavelengths etc
• Wyoming - nothing to report
• Oklahoma - user asked about quicklook reduction with KOSMOS - is pyKOSMOS available - NC to ask Davenport when broadly available
• Washington - nothing to report
• Georgia State - nothing to 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.

Open to new formats/inputs on report. Horizontal snow. Major rockslide on HW 82. Closed road for 4 days. Rocks pushed over into canyon. Saturday 8 am through Tuesday closed. Closed shortest bypass as well. Extra 1.5 hrs to get to APO. Dodged a bullet with LN2 delivery - not needed. NC to send links of pics, video

DSSI group coming in early March, CU class right after that. KOSMOS servicing - CTE issue, cleanup of readouts.

DIS measurements on sky last night - peak brightness is 10% of last year. in red can sum pixels - net effect is like being out of focus. with 1×2 binning, peak ~ 40% of where it was a year ago Q : will DIS contemn be better by CU class visit? France uses DIS Red will be noticeably better (temp dependent - evolves faster in warmer weather). Blue is coming up to point where it will turn around and start improving - prob won't see much change in next month - expect continued improvement through May

python3 - most imp for Linux users - OU, JHU, Wy, be on lookout for new software - let us know if any problems

nothing beyond what is above

Unassigned dates - Feb 9 (have taker as of now - short in bright). After that is Feb 20B (dark, unencumbered), Mar 27B - have them ask us

We have two open dates coming up soon: Dec 13B (brightish) and Dec 16B (grey); Dec 17B is also open but has been requested. Then we have some dark slots (shorter, but still ~ 4 hours of time since the winter nights are longer) on 27-29 and 31 December. We have 5 slots total in late December, with 2 requests received so far. We welcome requests and are eager to fill the mid-December time, although we will not publish a schedule update until the Q1 schedule is finished (so around Dec 9 or 10).

All schedulers have allocations for Q2. Requests are due 2/24. Include Amanda when sending in requests. Did block out early April for visiting instrument - only middle 6 hrs of night will be available - try to schedule Agile or ARCES during that time. Joanne - 2 nights close together - bring class up - doing bulge work - late May or June - needs to know personnel limits - KOSMOS and ARCTIC (5-7 people, how many adults, etc.)

open time but class Mar 13-19 non derek people observing with Shelyak hoping new FLI will be available in Q2

raises visibility talk with others in industry - Bill: very beneficial, other observatories stopped by booth, interact with PlaneWave and FingerLakes and other vendors, good to make F2F connections, good student interest, internships and opportunities Jamey: lots of ppl asking about summer internships, gap year, etc good for recruitment purposes - showcase science presence does ARC community good - recruitment Joanne - students were excited about it. send students to MS in optical sciences in Oregon - need to attract engineers

Open action items from previous meetings:

• Nancy: start investigations re: short wavelength throughput (climate data, other facilities). Status: OPEN. No news. Old news: 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.

New action items from this meeting:

• Nancy: make sure that the APO web site gets updated to address the issues reported by Eric B.
• UC reps: distribute information about the AAS meeting and our request for participation/help at the booth.
• Nancy: send out a new calendar invitation with the UC meeting dates for 2023.

None.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday Mach 7, 10:30 am MST.