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Attending: Nancy Chanover (NMSU), Chip Kobulnicky (UWy), Jamey Eriksen (APO), Anne Verbiscer (UVa), Derek Buzasi (FGCU), Eric Nielsen (NMSU), Sarah Tuttle (UW), Bill Ketzeback (APO), Kevin Schlaufman (JHU), Joanne Hughes (Seattle U), Aleksandr Mosenkov (BYU), Mukremin Kilic (OU), Misty Bentz (GSU), Russet McMillan (APO), Caleb Wang (UW), Ben Williams (UW), Gordon MacDonald (APO), Adam Kowalski (CU)

• Wyoming - nothing to report
• BYU - nothing to report
• Washington - nothing to report (sent by email)
• Colorado - nothing to report
• UVa - nothing to report
• FGCU - nothing to report
• Seattle - nothing to report
• Georgia State - nothing to report
• Oklahoma - nothing to report
• JHU - nothing to report
• NAPG - no 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, 10/3/2022 - 10/31/2022

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 October has continued transitioning to fall-like.

October had no classes scheduled to visit, there was one visiting instrument (NAIC) from NMSU mid-month.

1) Telescope

Telescope is behaving mostly as expected. As the nighttime temperatures continue to drop we expect to see the seasonal issues with motion errors pop up. Those will be mitigated with adjustments to the motion control loops.

2) Instruments

KOSMOS: Internal calibration flux levels have been adjusted and exposure times are set/liked.

DIS: Servicing was completed for both cameras. Focus is good; scattered light is increasing slowly on the red camera but is expected to turn around and improve some over the winter (if it follows the historical pattern). The blue camera scattered light trend is less clear at the moment. Our best guess is that it will stabilize and hopefully turn around and improve.

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 ratios are excellent.

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: Switched to Flarecam in late October, currently in use.

We had the first snowfall of the year at APO last week. DIS servicing has been completed; the scattered light is still with us. We had an issue with the telescope this morning: a tripped breaker caused a motion error, which has since been remedied. We introduced Gordon MacDonald, who was recently hired onto the APO staff as a software person for the 3.5m. Welcome Gordon! His areas of responsibility include working on the migration of the newest version of TUI (in python3) to various platforms, updating the control software for different instruments, and helping with an upgrade of the hub and its associated software. [The hub is the communications server that acts as a “traffic cop” between instrument controls, telescope controls and the user.] Caleb Wang joined the meeting from APO; he was there to get an introduction and overview of the facility and instruments.

The manufacturing of the second round of slits is underway. There have been some delays in the WNF (UW facility where the slits are machined) and we keep getting postponed off of the equipment. The first ones ready for production are waiting to be aluminized, Once we sign off on that set, we will do a big batch. We hope to have them done by the end of the CY. If people have requests for slits of unusual sizes they should let Sarah know so we can get them in the queue.

We are converging on process for the generation of MOS slit masks for KOSMOS with Bill's help. Joe Burchett (NMSU) has been working on it but we would like to develop a workflow for making them more easily. We have settled on a vendor in Arizona that has manufactured slits for KPNO; they are most affordable and have the fastest turnaround. If we could identify one or two more people who are interested in the MOS capability that would help us work through the process. Joanne has indicated interest so she will be next - is there anyone else?

Last month we discussed the issue of the wavelength coverage of the blue center slit. Currently the blue grating on KOSMOS in the central position covers 3800-6600 A, so the red cutoff is very close to Halpha. This setup is not ideal for observing magnetic targets, which have Zeeman splitting of the Halpha line. The high slit position shifts the wavelength coverage to 4150-7050, which is good for Halpha, but now misses some of the higher order Balmer lines. The UC reps were asked to query their users to determine if there are needs for another slit position that would cover the range from ~4000-6800 A. Both Eric B. (UW) and Adam (CU) responded that they have several users who would need this capability.

Reminder for all scheduling requests: please send emails to Ben, Russet, Nancy, and Amanda (ajt at apo.nmsu.edu).

Regarding the remainder of the OPEN/DD time in Q4, Nov 15B will be assigned to Jeff Bary (NAPG). The rest of the available time is in December, and there is a lot of it. Interested users are reminded to look for OPEN and DD01 blocks listed in the Q4 schedule and request it if desired, especially if they can make use of small blocks of time, especially with ARCES or Agile (for which no instrument change would be required).

Allocation emails will be going out tomorrow hopefully, and will have a somewhat early turnaround with requests due by 11/22/2022 to avoid the week of Thanksgiving.

There is unassigned time available with FlareCam. We used some time in October to train the obs-specs on Shelyak operations. Interested users should contact Ben, Russet, Nancy, Amanda and Bill to determine whether there is an option for getting trained. We are not yet ready to offer the Shelyak as a general use instrument on ARCSAT due to software issues that make its operation challenging, but we are open to testing the system with a few users who might be interested in helping us refine its operation.

The ARC Board of Governors meeting is on Monday November 7. Thank you to everyone who contributed science highlights; Nancy sent requests to a few individuals and it looks like we will have a packet containing representation from all ARC institutions and lease partners.

The January 2023 AAS meeting will be 8-12 January in Seattle. It would be good to have a mix of APO staff and users at the booth through the meeting. Nancy will order stickers to give to people for their badges to indicate that they are presenting results from APO observations. Also, we will make a digital image “sticker” available for download so users can add it to their iPoster if they made use of APO data. Nancy will also create a spreadsheet where people can indicate when their talk or poster is, as well as their availability to help out at the booth. Note added in proof: the spreadsheet is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F_oM3sqCz51Ynb1HvPftlr9RB5zvBFUjJN5yOq5Bu1s/edit?usp=sharing .

We will discuss this further at our December UC meeting.

Open action items from previous meetings:

• Nancy: start investigations re: short wavelength throughput (climate data, other facilities). Status: OPEN. No news. Old news: 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: please encourage your users to submit science highlights. Nancy needs to have them all in hand by Wednesday October 26. Status: CLOSED.
• UC reps: please query your users to determine whether they have a need for a slightly different wavelength range for the blue grating. Status: CLOSED.

New action items from this meeting:

None.

None.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday December 6, 10:30 am MST.