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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Eric Bellm (UW), Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Misty Bentz (GSU)

• UVa - nothing to report
• Wyoming - nothing to report
• Washington - nothing to report
• FGCU - no report
• Seattle - no problems to report; Joanne has been in discussion with observatory staff regarding preparing to use the MOS software for KOSMOS (discussed further below)
• JHU - nothing to report
• Georgia State - nothing to report
• Colorado - no report
• Oklahoma - nothing to report (submitted by email)
• NAPG - no report
• BYU - nothing to report
• NMSU - 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, 7/5/2022 - 8/1/2022

0) Overview

APO is no longer under any staffing or indoor masking restrictions from the State of New Mexico due to COVID. The COVID vaccination policy for ARC/APO has not changed.

Weather for July has been monsoonal, with dust also contributing to occasional closures.

1) Telescope

The telescope secondary issue may be related to the galil controller resetting. A power supply board was changed out and behavior is being monitored.

2) Instruments

KOSMOS: Commissioning activities are continuing; the instrument is still being offered on a shared risk basis. A replacement shutter for the slitviewer has arrived and will be replaced during the summer shutdown. Flux was decreased for internal lamps, more tuning is needed; this will take place at the same time as the shutter work. Work is also proceeding on prototype multiobject masks at both NMSU and UW shops. Some preliminary fields were observed and lessons learned are being applied to second round of test masks.

DIS: Servicing is tentatively being planned for early October to attempt to resolve the ice droplets on the red camera.

TripleSpec: Cold, operational and performing nominally.

Agile: Cold, operational and performing nominally. There is a known issue with missing observatory and WCS cards from the headers that we are trying to track down. This problem seemed to originate about the time we converted and moved the hub35m to a new server.

Echelle: Echelle inter-order light was slowly decreasing with the warmer ambient temperatures, but increased with cooler monsoon temperatures; the ratios are still quite good.

NICFPS: The instrument is performing nominally with the occasional need to reset the controller due to corrupted images, and previous cautions about rotator angle.

ARCTIC: Cold, operational and performing nominally.

3) ARCSAT: Limited to no usage lately.

We've had monsoonal weather at the observatory. The secondary mirror issue may be resolved since a board was replaced in the controller that moves the actuator on the back of the mirror. This was an old board and we are working on preparing for potential future failures. There has been some testing of MOS capabilities with KOSMOS. DIS is tentatively scheduled for servicing on red camera in early October. Everything else is nominal.

The KOSMOS activities that are planned for summer shutdown include the following:

• replace shutter in slit viewer camera with a new one that is rated for operation at colder temperatures
• try to resolve internal cal lamp brightness issue (again) by lowering the brightness of lamps with ND filtering
• a user is trying to use KOSMOS for bright planetary work with ND filters that are screwed on, but it was discovered that this results in interference with the cal stage. We will attempt to address this, possibly by removing some material from edge of the cal stage itself.
• if time allows, we will warm the instrument, pump on it, and bake out the getter

As a status update on the MOS capability for KOSMOS, Bill got the KMS software running under certain operating systems; he can provide instructions on how to install it. He has been working with Joe Burchett at NMSU on streamlining the process; currently the software outputs files in a format that is used for making electronic boards but not used by many machine shops so Bill has been converting them to SolidWorks or AutoCAD. We've had a few slit masks made at the UW machine shop using a wire EDM but this is expensive. We attempted to have some made at the NMSU machine shop using a laser cutter but the results are of low quality. However, in both cases we found that the scale factor between the slits and the sky is off by a small amount, so we are iterating on that to get the slit positions to match on-sky coordinates. Bill has also been working with former KOSMOS folks at NOIRLab to work out the intricacies of setting up the software configuration files to make it more applicable for APO. We are hoping by mid-September to have the process streamlined to help users create slit masks for multiobject spectroscopy. UC reps should remind their users of this exciting new capability at APO!

Chip asked if anyone knows where KOSMOS users have placed recommendations for KOSMOS flat fielding given the bright rows in the flats attributed to the zeroth order. Nancy will follow up and share this information once she has it.

Last month we discussed the fact that we have to delay the realuminization of the primary mirror due to the Contreras Fire at Kitt Peak. We are still actively pursuing other options, including whether a silver overcoat is an option that we can consider (we need to make sure that the short wavelength performance matches the needs of our users). Discussions of this topic remain ongoing.

As a reminder, because our summer shutdown was curtailed we have OPEN/DD time in August that can be requested. The early August time has been allocated, and although we have received several requests for the available time later in August, there is still some available. UC reps please remind your users that they can request this time through the usual process (submit requests to Russet, Nancy, Ben, and institutional scheduler, including a proposal cover page if the program doesn't already have one in place for Q3.

The emails with the institutional allocations will be sent out later this week. We would like to know ASAP if any institutions expect to bring a class group to the site for training in Q4. This impacts our staffing schedule, for which we already have several constraints. No one on today's call indicated that their institution is planning a class trip in Q4.

The ARCSAT Q3 schedule is now published; there is still room for some more requests.

APO needs your help in updating the observatory publication record! Please send Nancy (nchanove@nmsu.edu) any references for 3.5m-related publications (refereed publications and student theses/dissertations that have been published or submitted) from Jan 1, 2021 to now. The deadline was nominally July 31 but Nancy can take all updates through the month of August.

Open action items from previous meetings:

• Nancy: start investigations re: short wavelength throughput (climate data, other facilities). Status: OPEN. Nancy reached out to some colleagues at other observatories to ask about short wavelength performance degradation of their optical coatings. She got some names from Bill and will contact those individuals next. The ongoing discussions about new coatings for the primary also relate to this issue so we will determine our coatings first before continuing to pursue this line of investigation.

• UC reps: notify your users of remaining open/DD time in Q3.

• UC reps: remind your users to send Nancy all publications through 2021 by August 31, 2022.

New action items from this meeting:

• Nancy: track down resources for KOSMOS flat fielding and post them.

None.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday September 6, 10:30 am MDT.