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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Moire Prescott (NMSU), Mukremin Kilic, (OU), Ben Williams (UW), Adam Kowalski (CU), Eric Bellm (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Derek Buzasi (FGCU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Bill Ketzeback (APO)

• Wyoming - no report
• Washington - nothing to report
• UVa - nothing to report except feedback on DIS/KOSMOS issue
• Seattle - nothing to report
• Oklahoma - nothing to report
• NMSU - nothing to report
• NAPG - no report
• JHU - nothing to report
• Georgia State - nothing to report
• FGCU - nothing to report
• Colorado - nothing to report except feedback on DIS/KOSMOS issue
• BYU - 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, 2/07/2024 – 3/04/2024

1) Overview

February has seen improving weather at APO except for a recent snow storm at the end of month. The telescope has continued to work well. Weather has been turning from the continual winter storm cycle to a more moderate pattern.

We had the DSSI team at APO for observing in February, but otherwise things were quiet at the site. March is going to start off with a class from CU during the first full week of the month.

2) Operations

3.5m Telescope: Telescope is working well; motion errors seem to be of the seasonal type.

0.5m Telescope: Nothing to report

KOSMOS new slits (high/center/low for both 1.25 and 20 arcsecond widths) have arrived and are being further tested/modified (captive screws, covers, dowel pins).

ARCTIC diffuser’s rotator service is being planned for later in the spring.

Agile Instrument TEC controls failed. Attempted repairs have so far been unsuccessful so far.

ARCES fill system is repaired and the instrument was cooled down. The inter-order light has been degrading steadily since it was returned to service.

DIS red camera readout failure was fixed and the camera was returned to service.

Kevin France's CU class is on site right now. The weather is improving but a storm is coming this weekend. We have seen seasonal motion errors with the telescope but nothing out of ordinary. KOSMOS has been vacuum pumped and now is working fine. The 1.25 and 20“ slits being worked on/tested. DIS red camera has been recovered. Echelle was taken down partly for partial warm up to warm up detector and keep IOL from getting too bad. Returned to service. Q: is warm up of echelle related to previous issue? Yes. There is some water vapor condensing on some surface that CCD is seeing. In the past we have seen this after a pumping cycle and cool down. But doesn't happen every time. This time, contamination grew rapidly, In past had success with just warming inner deware that contains CCD while keeping other one cold. migrates to coldest thing in vacuum vessel. Do this for about a week and cool back down, hoping to have better success. One program had echelle as primary was affected but had KOSMOS as backup. DIS red - how brought back to life? Order of restarting software and hardware was the solution. KOSMOS slits - 20” were new, added to suite and returned to service. 1.25“ slits had machining issues - being shipped back to UW to be remade. Will be available soon. 2.1” is still most popular width.

Ocotillo update - have all 3 channels designed. Working through refinement/definition stage before presenting everything in CDR. In lab: first pass of design of fiber bundles, interface with observatory infrastructure. Do our CDR with the observatory before getting everything off the ground. Small pieces: have optical test bench with first camera (off the shelf to be used for any of 3 channels) - CDR - decide if use it or a smaller bandwidth camera. Andor had one built and available so we jumped on. Can build and bring online a single channel without being held up by camera purchases. Current plan: staged deployment - specking robots for robotic option (vs fully packed IFU bundle). Working on project upgrading DESI - take advantage of DESI or S5 robots - best technology but maybe add ours too. Everything paced with IFU, robots can happen same time or later. Spring CDR. Sabbatical in Sept (also summer). Provide updates to UC regularly. We are working to support finalization of reduction package with KOSMOS data - having clear reduction paths. Adam: timeline to reach first light? At least IFU channel within 18 months. Need to get quotes on optics next. Aiming for 1-2 channels on sky and in place by time come off sabbatical.

The remaining unassigned time in Q1 is all OPEN:

The Q2 schedule is in the works.

The Q1 schedule for ARCSAT is basically full. There is one week that is listed as unavailable when we will have classes on site. The Q2 call for proposals will be issued in mid-March.

Open action items from previous meetings:

• UC reps: ask your users what capabilities KOSMOS lacks that makes some people still want to use DIS - CU users - no one freaked out about no DIS - got 2 responses plus his - ZBT said could use full spectral coverage with lower res prism, higher res for plan nebula, Adam - could use both if had blue sensitivity

ERIC - UW blue sensitivity, high resolution, halpha NMSU - high res for line profile analysis, full coverage in one go Muk - agrees - frustrating that include h alpha but don't get all of the blue

• Nancy: get ROM costs for new KOSMOS grisms -
• UC reps: remind your users to review the Q1 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it.

Open action items from this meeting:

• xxx

The next meeting will be on April 2 at 10:30 MDT.