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

• Wyoming - nothing to report
• BYU - nothing to report
• Washington - nothing to report
• Colorado - users requested updates on Ocotillo, new echelle, and any other instrument initiatives; also a request for an update re: adding a new grism to KOSMOS for R ~ 1e4 capability (Nancy addressed both of these items below)
• UVa - nothing to report
• FGCU - no report
• Seattle - nothing to report
• Georgia State - nothing to report
• Oklahoma - nothing to report
• JHU - nothing to report
• NMSU - Moire reminded us that Joe Burchett still has some remaining funds to make KOSMOS slit masks for MOS observations; the funds need to be spent down ASAP so please contact Joe if you're interested
• 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, 11/05/2024 – 12/02/2024

1) Overview

November has seen wintery weather with two snow storms, each with enough snow to impact operations. During the month of November we had one astronomer group visit, one visiting instrument team on site, and no class visits.

The October water leak was repaired successfully and hasn’t shown any issues since the repair. The phone line that was damaged was eventually repaired and now all the services affected by the leak are back to normal operational state.

2) Operations

3.5m Telescope: Telescope is moving as expected.

0.5m Telescope: Telescope is working well.

KOSMOS: nothing to report.

ARCTIC: had an emergency vacuum service performed due to the vacuum softening. Instrument was returned to service without any missed observing time. Instrument seems to be experiencing an increased rate of the one quadrant dropping. Investigations to determine the cause of this trend are ongoing.

Agile: Once we received the repaired camera back on site, in-lab testing revealed an issue that necessitated that we return the camera to the repair vendor to investigate the hardware that was changed. The camera control software was not able to configure the camera as expected and was reporting issues with the gain parameter setting.

ARCES: Instrument is performing nominally. IOL measurements have held steady and are still very good. Recently, the quartz flat lamp bulb housing and/or wiring was worked on to due to the lamp not turning on. A temporary repair is in place while parts are on order. Instrument flats are working with the temporary fix.

DIS: Instrument is currently up and usable. Vacuum servicing is not planned for Q4.

NICFPS: Instrument is performing nominally.

TripleSpec: Instrument is performing nominally.

APOLLO: system suffered a chiller failure due to leaks. The leaks were repaired and the system has successfully ranged to the moon after the repair. The chiller that had the issue is a “spare” chiller being used because the in-service chiller had failed. A replacement chiller is on order and will be integrated into the system when it arrives at APO.

There was an emergency vacuum service performed on ARCTIC during November 11-12. The echelle lamp bulb holder was fixed this morning. December is looking wintery with a storm predicted for this weekend. Agile was sent back to the repair vendors to see if they could solve the gain issue. We are awaiting its return. It will likely be usable going forward, but possibly with a fixed gain setting rather than one that can be modified by users. If there are any Agile users who typically adjust the gain setting during their observations please let Nancy know so we can understand the impact of this possible solution.

We have some unassigned time in Q4 (5 B-half dates in late December, one of which was already requested). 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). Users can request time listed as OPEN or DD.

The Q1 2025 schedule is being worked on as we speak. We anticipate having it out by December 10. Note added in proof: there is some open time available in early January (B halves on Jan 08, 09, 12). Please encourage your users to request it through the same channels described above.

The Q4 ARCSAT scheduled is posted. There is time available in the last week of December (but with no requests for filter changes). The Q1 2025 call for proposals will be issued once the Q1 schedule for the 3.5m is posted.

We are now planning to move forward with two parallel efforts, One is some work on the back end of things to stand up

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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. The grism design turns out to be a little complicated, but also, costs have gone up, so these are more expensive than we expected (ballpark $20k apiece). Therefore, we need to explore potential funding sources. We have reached an impasse in terms of prioritizing the desired grism; Nancy will amass all previous emails with grism requests and send to UC reps to query users about whether there is broad interest in a particular grism. This could help identify funding sources, either individually or collaboratively. STATUS: OPEN.
• 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. Nancy received examples of this issue from Anne Verbiscer and will get something added to the current (and new) web site. STATUS: OPEN.
• UC reps: remind your users to review the Q4 and Q1 schedules and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it. STATUS: OPEN.
• UC reps: remind your users that they can propose to use Agile in Q1 2025 (but must include a backup instrument). STATUS: CLOSED.
• UC reps: alert your users to the fact that plans are being formulated for decommissioning DIS.

Open action items from this meeting:

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None.

The next meeting will be on January 7, 2025 at 10:30 MST. (??)