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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Michael Hayden (OU), Moire Prescott (NMSU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Sarah Tuttle, (UW), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Ben Williams (UW), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Eric Bellm (UW)

• Oklahoma - nothing to report
• BYU - nothing to report
• NMSU - nothing to report
• Washington - nothing to report
• Georgia State - nothing to report
• JHU - nothing to report - KS's auto data reduction for ARCES failed - maybe change with ThAr lamp?
• Colorado - nothing to report (received by email)
• UVa - nothing to report
• Wyoming - no report
• FGCU - nothing to report (received by email)
• NAPG - no report
• Seattle - 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, 9/03/2024 – 10/01/2024

1) Overview

Weather wise, September has started to improve from the monsoonal pattern. Operations have returned relatively smoothly from the August shutdown. During the month of September we had one small class visit (UW at the end of the month); another class that had been scheduled for earlier in the month was switched to remote training. We also had the DSSI team on site for observing.

2) Operations

3.5m Telescope: The tertiary rotation system was repaired by replacing a power supply, a voltage regulator on a board, and a high resolution encoder. The telescope is experiencing position errors in azimuth direction reversals that is currently not well understood. Pointing performance is affected slightly by this error, and investigations are underway.

0.5m Telescope: Telescope is working well.

KOSMOS: nothing to report.

ARCTIC: nothing to report

Agile: The camera failure was diagnosed to be a failed TEC. A purchase order for the repair was issued, and we are now awaiting completion of the repairs so the camera can be returned.

Echelle: the instrument control computer hard drives were repaired/replaced. A power supply was also replaced with a new one of the correct size. The system is up, stable and usable. IOL measurements appear nominal and are still very good.

DIS: System is currently up and usable. Vacuum servicing may occur in Q4 but has not been scheduled yet.

NICFPS: System is cooled and usable.

TripleSpec: System is up and usable.

APOLLO: The instrument control computer had a failure of a computer motherboard/CPU/power supply. We are waiting on replacement parts to arrive as well as the spare ICC to be shipped from NASA. The system is down until the ICC is repaired.

Control system throwing error when crosses next magna sensor - error is too large- don't know if something has gradually changed over th year and need to open up limit for that error or wether there is a hardware problem - happens when telescope is tracking or slewing - azimuth direction onyl- arc second size error Problem when cooled/tested detector for Agile after replacing TEC - still diagnosing. APOLLO spare booted up yesterday - back to observing on Monday hopefully

Moire asked about proceuude for remote training postdoc

We have some unassigned time in Q4 (Oct 26B, Nov 23B and 28B (short), and several in December). Users should look at the schedule and follow the usual channels for requesting this time (i.e. email Russet, Amanda, Ben, Nancy and their institutional scheduler when submitting requests, and provide a proposal cover page if you don't already have a program scheduled for the current quarter).

Make sure users are responding to set up emails at least 24 hrs in advance

The Q4 ARCSAT scheduled is posted - started yesterday. High demand resource this quarter - everyone got what they wanted.

See minutes from last month - Ben started using it so he can find stuff that breaks. CHANGE HABIT to

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 8. 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 Friday October 25. These are important for conveying to the Board members that their institution's investment in ARC and the 3.5m is worthwhile!

Open action items from previous meetings:

• Nancy: get ROM costs for new KOSMOS grisms. Sarah reported that she has a finalized quote from one vendor. These are more expensive than we expected so we need to explore potential funding sources. STATUS: OPEN. grism design a little complicated but also costs have gone up. path: if there are groups or institutions interested in particular grisms let Nancy know - we can support folks writing small proposals or… ? doesn't have to be particularly coordinated, order one at a time cost ~ $20k +/-
• Nancy: Ensure that a short description of the impact of satellites be posted on the APO website somewhere and updated every 6 months or so. STATUS: OPEN. Waiting for new web site deployment may not be the best approach. Nancy will get examples of this issue from Anne Verbiscer and get something added to the current web site before the next meeting.

Open action items from this meeting:

• UC reps: remind your users to review the Q4 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it. Status: CLOSED.

• UC reps: BoG science highlights

None.

The next meeting will be on November 5 (?) at 10:30 MST.