apo-wiki

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)

nothing to report no report

• JHU -
• UVa -
• Georgia State -
• NMSU -
• Seattle -
• FGCU -
• Colorado -
• Oklahoma -
• Washington -
• BYU -
• Wyoming -
• NAPG -

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).

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).

visit from NMSU administration

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.

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Open June 25-July 1

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.”

Open action items from previous meetings:

• Nancy: track down missing ARCTIC data reduction scripts for wiki. → OPEN
• 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:

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The next meeting will be on Tuesday July 11, 10:30 am MDT. This is one week later than our regular schedule of the first Tuesday of the month to avoid Independence Day. The August meeting, which would be scheduled for August 1, will be canceled.