UCO on-line Newsletter 4: June 2007

This is a short summary of UCO news of interest to the broad UC astronomy community for the period November 2006 - Jun 2007.

Regards, Mike Bolte, Director, UCO

• Mt Hamilton News

  I am excited about a 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 and upgrades to the motor control systems. 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 putting 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. Cooling the guiders an additional 20C looks like it may dramatically improve sensitivity.

    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.

    VILLAGES is a project to build the first MEMS-based AO system in use at a telescope. The instrument (essentially an optical bench) is now assembled and undergoing testing in the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics cleanroom and we are on schedule for first light later this summer.

    The VILLAGES instrument in the LAO cleanroom.

  • Remote Observing at Mt Hamilton Remote observing with the Nickel 1m telescope is now routine and we have had the first remote observations with the 3m in "evesdrop" mode.

• Keck Observatory News

  • The Earthquake of 2006

    The big recent news at Keck Observatory is unfortunately that there is a significant disruption of observing due to damage at headquarters and at the summit as a result of the 6.7 magnitude earthquake centered just south of Puako on the Kohala coast. The main earthquake hit at 7:10am October 15 followed by a 6.0 aftershock.

    

    It was quickly established that there were no injuries to Keck employees (and as it turned out to anyone in Hawaii). Plans were rapidly developed for systematically inspecting and testing telescopes and instruments and the Observatory staff moved into high gear with multiple shifts per day working at the summit and headquarters. Although initial evaluations showed that catastropic damage was avoided, there was significant damage to both telescopes. The cleanup, evaluations, fixes and recalibrations are continuing as I write this message on November 8. Instruments and the AO systems came through remarkably unscathed. K1 had its first shared-risk science observations Oct 27 and has continued carrying out scheduled science with some restrictions in azimuth travel. K2 had first post-earthquake light on Nov 6.

    The Keck staff and leadership deserve a tremendous "mahalo" from all of us for the huge effort of the last three weeks. There are members of the staff who have spent up to the 14-hour/day limit at the summit almost every day since the earthquake. The broad competence and deep knowledge of the facility they have demonstrated is greatly appreciated as is the absolute dedication shown to getting the telescopes back on line for science. There are updates posted at the WWW site below along with some images from headquarters and the summit. CARA Earthquake photos and news

  • 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:

    

    Hats off to the team led by Joe Miller and Drew Phillips that successfully coated the ADC prisms with MgF+saphire+Solgel. These are among the best quality, broad-band anti-reflection coatings ever applied to large optics. The ADC has been completed and was shipped out to Hawaii just in time for the earthquake. It is now at the summit awaiting installation, alignment and testing. These activities have been delayed by the earthquake recovery work and first ADC-modified light is probably going to be mid January of 2007.

• 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