UCO on-line Newsletter 4: Feb 2008

This is a short summary of UCO news of interest to the broad UC astronomy community.

Regards, Mike Bolte, Director, UCO

• Mt Hamilton News

  I am excited about a number of activities at Mt Hamilton to upgrade our key instruments, bring on some new capabilities and do some general sprucing up.

  • Projects There are several projects that have been defined for upgrades at Mt. Hamilton. The KAST and Hamilton spectrometers are getting general tuneups, upgrades to the motor control systems and optics cleaned and recoated. New CCD controllers are being completed for all the Mt Hamilton instruments. For the KAST red side we are also planning to replace the current CCD with an LBNL high-resistivity device which will completely eliminate fringing, give significantly better QE longward of 600nm and give a uniform focus for the full spectral range on the red side. Although many people are working to make these upgrades possible, special thanks go to Tony Misch and Graeme Smith for taking the lead in pulling the efforts together.

    In anticipation of the Villages MEMS-based AO experiment at the Nickel Telescope a number of modifications to improve the seeing in that dome and correct problems with the secondary focus mechanism are underway. Investigations are also underway to improve the performance of the guiders at both telescopes via cooling and some image processing on the fly.

    There are other projects that do not have as high a profile for the visiting scientists but are nevertheless very important for ensuring reliability. These include an evaluation of and likely improvements to the Mt Hamilton water system and replacement of the 3m dome wheel axles that were shown to have cracks when imaged with ultrasound.

    The VILLAGES instrument in the LAO cleanroom.

    VILLAGES had a very successful first light. This is the first MEMS-based AO system to be used at a telescope. Open-loop control was successfully tested and Strehl >0.1 was achieved at red wavelengths.

  • Remote Observing at Mt Hamilton Remote observing with the Nickel 1m telescope is now routine and around half of the time the telescope is used in this mode. Overall use of the 1m is up 50% - 70% since we made the remote option available. We have also had several engineering runs using the 3m remotely from Santa Cruz. One infrastructure improvement that is neccessary in order to

  • Rennovation of the 3m dome kitchen and library. As announced earlier this year, after considerable analysis and soul searching, the decision was made to close the diner because of the low and decreasing demand. For this and other reasons we are undertaking a complete remodel of the kitchen and library in the 3m dome with the intention of making a convenient and pleasant food preparation, eating and meeting place. This work is completely planned and we are shooting to have all the work completed in the next month.

• Keck Observatory News

  • Keck Science and Strategic Planning meetings

    Caltech hosted the annual Keck Science Meeting and Keck Strategic Planning Meeting in September 2007. The attendance this year was high for both meetings. The quality of the presentations at the science meetings was uniformily outstanding and as always the breath of the science presented made this a particularly interesting day. Chuck Steidel and Taft Armandroff at the Keck Science Meeting 2007

  • Next Generation AO: The SSC devoted an additional 1/2 day at their June 2006 meeting to review the materials developed and presented by the Keck Adaptive Optics Working Group defining the Next Generation AO (NGAO) system for the Keck Observatory. The concepts were enthusiastically adopted and an Executive Committee of Peter Wizinowich (Keck Obs), Rich Dekany (Caltech), Don Gavel (UC Santa Cruz) and Claire Max (UC Santa Cruz) was put together to generate a detailed work plan for the next 18 months of effort leading to a Preliminary Design.

    Consistent with the Strategic Plan developed and maintained by the SSC, NGAO will be the major initiative of the next five years for the Keck Observatory.

    The NGAO concept and science reach documents are available by request to me (bolte@ucolick.org) or Claire Max (max@ucolick.org).

  • LRIS ADC:

    

• Thirty-Meter Telescope

  • Cost Review: The Project devoted much of the June through Sept period developing a very detailed cost estimate for the TMT as defined by the Science Requirements Document. The process was of much value in identifying quite completely the tasks ahead during design, construction and initial operations. A rigorous review was held over four days at the end of September during which the cost estimate methodology, completeness and results were scrutinized by an outside panel. This was another very successful review and the Project was given excellent marks for the entire costing exercise and the cost total and level of contingency were judged to be well-founded.

    The total cost for the "SRD" telescope came in around 20% higher than the TMT Board-approved target. The Project is now involved in a "recosting" exercise. The goal of reducing the cost estimate by 20% without introducing significant additional risk or reducing scope (e.g. reducing the diameter of the primary mirror) is a challenging one, but it may be possible through relaxation of some requirements, optimizing some designs with respect to cost, and eliminating or reducing some support facilities.

  • Partnership: The NSF Astronomy Division Senior Review report has been completed and there are some recommendations relevant to the TMT and our partnership with AURA and NOAO. If accepted by the NSF, the recommendations in the report may remove direct involvement of AURA/NOAO in TMT, but the NSF would continue to support development efforts for Extremely Large Telescopes. The three partners, UC, Caltech and ACURA of Canada, are resolved to press forward and not lose momentum or the significant lead the TMT has on other ELT projects around the world.

• Previous Newsletters

  June 06 UCO Newsletter

  Jan 06 UCO Newsletter