apo-wiki

Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Ben Williams (UW), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Michael Hayden (OU), Eric Bellm (UW), Ben Williams (UW), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Moire Prescott (NMSU),

Misty Bentz (GSU), Gordon MacDonald (APO),

• Washington - nothing to report
• BYU - nothing to report
• UVa - nothing to report
• Colorado - nothing to report (by email)
• Seattle - Joanne observed last night so sent an email report: Amanda was very helpful with aligning the slit masks for MOS observations with KOSMOS; Joanne has also gotten better at making them.
• Georgia State - no report
• Oklahoma - nothing to report
• JHU - nothing to report (by email)
• NMSU - no report
• NAPG - no report
• Wyoming - 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, 3/04/25 – 03/31/25

1) Overview

March was a bit unsettled weather wise with higher spring winds and elevated dust levels for a good portion of the month. Light snow flurries, with little accumulation, on two nights was the majority of the moisture we received in March. The second half of the student group from CU and one instrument team visited APO this month. A small number of high school and college spring break tours of the site and telescope were also given mid-March.

2) Operations

3.5m Telescope: Telescope is working as expected.

0.5m Telescope: Telescope is working as expected. ACP Library support errors are still occurring even with the dcam-spare camera swap. USB communications dropouts are now the most likely cause of the error. Discussions on how to proceed from here will be on going.

KOSMOS: There was some troubleshooting required following an inadvertent power down of part of the instrument. Documentation and the addition of extra labeling hopefully will correct this from happening in the future.

ARCTIC: Maintenance on the diffuser mechanism was performed however we believe there was a failure of part of the electronics that controls rotation. Troubleshooting is continuing. Diffuser rotation has been disabled while we attempt to repair. The mechanism that moves the diffuser in and out of the optical path is still functional in the meantime.

Agile: The camera was returned to the repair facility for additional troubleshooting. They transplanted our detector to a spare set of electronics boards, vacuum pumped and tested. We have it back now and are reinstalling at the writing of this report. I will give a further update during the meeting.

ARCES: System is currently up and usable. There was a recent report that flat fields are shifting. The effect is mentioned in the user manual however may be of larger magnitude than has been seen in the past. The orders appear to shift a few rows from image to image. The cause is unknown at this time especially since the instrument had been so stable for years. It is advised not to use super flats in your reductions unless you carefully compare individual raw images you are combining. No further update on this problem from last month.

DIS: System is cooled and usable.

NICFPS: System is cooled and usable.

TripleSpec: System is cooled and usable.

APOLLO: The system is operational. The team was able to successfully receive returns off of the Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR-1) on the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Lander. This is a major accomplishment for the team and lunar ranging operations at APO.

Tours - adding more capabilities.

ARCSAT library support problems persist, even with spare dcam (new out of the box) - could be due to USB communication over the long distance. Unsure how to move forward - there are some options but they are pricey.

ARCTIC diffuser rotator still not working reliably. Still troubleshooting- disabled rotation for the time being.

Agile - two problems: something happened with software control of camera readout rate - can verify that camera health is as expected but current ICC is unable to change readout speed from slow to fast. Min exp times much longer than some programs would like. Second problem they are troubleshooting is instrument rotator motor is not receiving power from control cabinet. Verified that amplifier is not putting out any current even though it does power up - have a few spares, looking into how those are programmed to see if a spare could be reprogrammed.

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A new page has been added to the 3.5m wiki to demonstrate the effects of satellite streaks on ARCTIC imaging. This page will be updated as more information is provided to us. If users report instances of satellite contamination we would like to know! Please have them notify Nancy. The new page is here: satellites

Open action items from previous meetings:

• Nancy: get Mt. Cuba Foundation proposal for new KOSMOS grisms submitted. STATUS: OPEN. The proposal is done; Nancy needs to confirm with NMSU's Office of Grants and Contracts whether they need to be involved in the submission since it's a small proposal. She plans to submit it before the next Users Committee meeting.
• 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: CLOSED.
• UC reps: remind your users to review the Q1 schedule and request OPEN/DD time if they can make a good case for it. STATUS: CLOSED.

New action items from this meeting:

• UC reps: TBD

None

The next meeting will be on May 6, 2025 at 10:30 MDT.