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Magellan Associate Director Report

Magellan Associate Director Report. Personnel Observing Statistics Telescope Operations. Personnel‏. Mechanical Engineer hired In late-July, Juan Gallardo was offered the job Mechanical Engineer in the Magellan Technical Group in Chile He accepted and began work on September 2

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Magellan Associate Director Report

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  1. Magellan Associate Director Report • Personnel • Observing Statistics • Telescope Operations

  2. Personnel‏ • Mechanical Engineer hired • In late-July, Juan Gallardo was offered the job Mechanical Engineer in the Magellan Technical Group in Chile • He accepted and began work on September 2 • Juan worked as a mechanical engineer at CTIO from 2000-2005, and for ALMA from 2006 to present

  3. Personnel (cont.)‏ • Frank Perez • As of July 1, Frank Perez has taken on the position of “Magellan Technical Manager” in Pasadena • As such, he will serve as the technical and logistics liaison for engineers and scientists at LCO in support of Magellan telescope operations • During FY10/11, Frank’s effort will continue to be 80% for Magellan and 20% for Small Telescopes • His Magellan effort will decrease to 50% in FY11/12 once the new Magellan Mechanical Engineer in Chile (Juan Gallardo) has come up to speed

  4. Personnel (cont.)‏ • Alan Uomoto • As of July 1, Alan Uomoto’s title has changed to “Carnegie Observatories Technical Manager” • He is supervising purchasing and shipping in Pasadena, and is also in charge of the Observatories’ shop and technical personnel • In addition, Alan will continue to spend 30% of his effort working for Magellan (mostly overseeing instrument-related issues)

  5. Personnel (cont.)‏ • New Instrument Engineer position • This position was approved by the Council beginning in FY 2011/12 • Replacement for Magellan Fellow program • Tasks will include: • Engineering Run support • Night on-sky testing of all instrument modes and monitoring of calibrated results • Testing and maintenance of reduction pipelines • Updates to exposure time calculators • Refinement of observing cookbooks • Implementation and testing of new observing scripts • Full testing of various observing modes

  6. Baade Clay % Open 86.5% 87.8% % Lost to Weather 11.2% 9.9% % Lost to Telescope 1.4% 1.3% % Lost to Instrument 0.8% 0.9% % Lost to Computer 0.1% 0.1% % Total Downtime 2.3% 2.3% Observing Statistics 14 Aug-2010 – 28 Feb 2011:

  7. Observing Statistics: Baade Downtime

  8. Observing Statistics: Clay Downtime

  9. Observing Statistics Baade Telescope Instrumentation Usage:

  10. Observing Statistics Clay Telescope Instrumentation Usage:

  11. Observing Statistics: Instrument Usage

  12. Instrument Commissioning

  13. Instrument Still To Come

  14. Telescope Operations • Primary mirrors: • The planned re-aluminizing of the Baade primary mirror did not occur do to the failure of a bearing in the LCO frequency converter. The mirror was washed instead. • A “rain event” on Feb 28 affected the primary mirrors of both telescopes. This was after the Baade mirror was washed, but before the Clay mirror washing. After washing of Clay mirror, patchy areas persisted. • These events will have an impact on planning re-aluminizing and washing of mirrors next Chilean summer. • Clay tertiary mirror: • Coating of Clay M3 was damaged while in storage during last f/5 run (Oct-Nov 2010). Mirror will be re-coated during the current f/5 run.

  15. Telescope Operations • Earthquake Monitoring: • Baade telescope is now outfitted with set of logging accelerometers • Data are beginning to be taken and analyzed • Preliminary data indicate significant amplification by the telescope structure

  16. Telescope Operations • Software issues: • A long term problem with the encoders on the Cass and Folded port rotators was recently solved • Non-sidereal tracking control software finally appears to be working well • Guider and TCS software have been upgraded to deal more gracefully with the limited available field of the guide probes on FourStar • Weather/Seeing facilities: • New Vaisala weather station now functioning. A new weather web site is being developed • Work is nearing completion on full automation of the Magellan DIMM

  17. End

  18. Extra Slides

  19. Magellan Telescopes Organizational Diagram

  20. Observing Statistics Instrument Downtime:

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