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Kitt Peak National Observatory KITT PEAK NATIONAL OBSERVATORY Tucson, Arizona and CERRO TOLOLO INTER-AMERICAN OBSERVATORY La Serena, Chile Operated by the ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC under contract with the NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION QUARTERLY REPORT January-February-March 1970 KITT PEAK NATIONAL OBSERVATORY GENERAL AURA Meetings - The Scientific and Organization Committees met in joint session in Tucson on the morning of 20 January. The com mittees jointly recommended to the Board of Directors that Visiting and Users' Committees be formed, reporting to the Board and to the Observatory Director, respectively, to increase outside review of the activities of the Observatories. That afternoon the Scientific Committee met and agreed to eliminate reprints from the Observatories' Contribution series, to confine the series in the future to original work, and to eliminate storage and distribution of reprints. It was recommended that Dr. H. A. Abt, Stellar division, accept the offer to become managing editor of the Astrophysical Journal in 1971. Extension of the time limita tion for appointments as consulting scientist from six months to one year was recommended. The 197 0 Annual Meeting of the AURA Board of Directors was held on 22 January. Board members whose terms expired with this meeting were re-designated for terms of three years, and a new Board mem ber, Mr. Roy C. Fredrickson, Controller of the University of California, was welcomed. Dr. W. A. Hiltner of Yerkes Observatory, Mr. J. A. Franklin of Indiana University, and Dr. 0. C Mohler of the University of Michigan were re-elected as President, Vice- President, and Chairman of the Scientific Committee, respectively, for terms of one year, and non-Board member officers were also re-elected. New Directors-at-Large elected were Dr. G. Neugebauer, California Institute of Technology; Dr. E. E. Salpeter, Cornell University; and Prof. Hugo Moreno, University of Chile. Consul tants re-elected were Dr. I. S. Bowen, Hale Observatories, and Dr. Norman Hackerman, President of the University of Texas. Prof. Claudio Anguita, University of Chile, and Dr. A. B. Weaver, Provost, University of Arizona, are newly-elected consultants. Reports on activities of the Corporation and the Observatories for the past year were presented by Drs. Hiltner, N. U. Mayall, and V. M. Blanco. It was agreed that a special subcommittee of the AURA Scientific Committee should be appointed to investigate AURA's possible participation in new areas of astronomy, such as infrared and X-ray astronomy. Recommendations of the Scientific Committee, mentioned earlier, were approved. -1- The AURA Board established the new Research Support Division within the Observatory, and authorized the position of an Associate Director for it. Dr. David L. Crawford, astronomer in the Stellar Division, and manager of the 150-inch telescope projects, accepted an offer of appointment to this new position. Dr. Bengt Westerlund, Director of European Southern Observatory in Chile, was a guest of the Board of Directors and he reported on present and hoped-for future cooperation between AURA and ESO in Chile. Also present at the meeting were Dr. Robert Fleischer, Head, Astronomy Section, NSF and his assistant, Dr. Gerry Anderson. Dr. Fleischer described the present organization of the National Science Foundation and the formation of the Advisory Panel to the Astronomy Section, which was to meet in Tucson in March. On 18 March, the AURA Executive Committee met in Tucson. The Committee encouraged the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and Yale University to proceed with negotiations regarding the location of the Yale 40-inch telescope on Cerro Tololo. An imple mentation plan for an Observatory Advisory Committee was approved to provide improved communication with the astronomical community by including among its members a broad spectrum of astronomers including representatives from among the Americas. President Hiltner was authorized to pursue the matter of possible AURA operation of the Mount Lemmon former Air Force radar installation, recently declared surplus by the Department of Defense, and on the disposal of which the Foundation has placed a temporary hold action. Dr. D. L. Crawford reported on the progress of the 158-inch tele scopes, domes, and buildings, and on the visit of Dr. I. M. Kopylov, director of the new Astrophysical Observatory, at Zelenchuskaja, in the Caucasus Mountains, USSR, where the world's largest 236-inch (6-meter) optical telescope is located. Meeting in Washington - Dr. W. A. Hiltner as president of AURA Inc., Dr. N. U. Mayall as Observatory Director, and Mr. James M. Miller as Associate Director-Administration represented AURA and the Kitt Peak National and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatories at a meeting held in Washington, D. C. on 8 January of repre sentatives of government-sponsored consortia of universities. In addition to AURA, other consortia delegates were from Associated Universities Inc., Universities Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Argonne Universities Association, and Universities Research Association. Executive Committee of AUI - Meeting in Tucson on 19 and 20 February were members of the Executive Committee of Associated Universities Inc. The group toured Kitt Peak and were especially -2- interested to inspect the 36-ft. radio telescope operated by NRAO. In addition to the AUI board members, staff members of NRAO, AUI corporate offices in Washington and New York, and of the Brook- haven National Laboratory were also present. NSF Panel Meeting - The Advisory Panel to the Astronomy Section of the National Science Foundation, members of the Astronomy Section, and NSF staff members met at Tucson Headquarters on 9-10 March. Interviews were held with KPNO staff members to discuss the various programs, facilities'use by resident staff and visitors, and future plans for Observatory activities. STELLAR DIVISION FACILITIES AND INSTRUMENTATION 150-inch Telescope Instrumentation - Conceptual, and in some cases detailed, design drawings are being completed for some of the basic instrumentation for the 150-inch telescopes. These include a Cassegrain position instrumentation rotator and adaptor, a Casse grain spectrograph, prime focus field correctors, a manual prime focus camera, Cassegrain and prime focus guider units, and cameras and test equipment. Dr. C G. Wynne, Imperial College, London, who designed the prime focus correctors, has consulted with Jorge Simmons, the Observatory's optical designer, and the staff in preparing bid specifications for three prime focus field correctors These are: (1) a fused silica doublet with a corrected field of approximately 22 arc minutes (scale approximately lg^/mm) for the range XX3200-10,000A for intermediate-band filters; (2) a UBK-7 triplet designed to correct a field of 50 arc minutes for broad passbands in the violet and blue; and (3) a triplet similarly designed to work in the visual to near-infrared range. While Dr. Wynne was at the Observatory for approximately 10 days follow ing 22 March, he also advised the staff concerning a number of spectrograph camera designs, and discussed some of the alterna tives to the classical Schmidt design for moderately fast wide- field cameras. Dr. Daniel Schroeder, on sabbatical leave from Beloit College, Wisconsin, and a part-time consultant on optical instruments, has designed and analyzed a Cassegrain Echelle spectrograph system for possible use with the 150-inch telescopes and image tubes. The Eastman Kodak Company, through the cooperation of a number of persons including Drs. K. C Kennard, J. C. Marchant, and A. G. Millikan, has supplied a quantity of estar base film coated with a special emulsion similar to Ilia-J. Mr. William Schoening has completed a number of laboratory tests using this -3- material, and he and Dr. A. A. Hoag have applied it at the tele scopes as well. It is believed that this film will be useful for some 150-inch telescope operations. Tests of the prototype image dissector guider are being continued. Warren Ball, Electronics Laboratory, has modified the control unit to provide for a CRT raster-scanned finder mode. This device allows the observer to view the guider field remotely prior to setting up the guider scan mode. Don Trumbo, using a small com puter system designed for applications at one of the 36-inch tele scopes, has investigated the suitability of the image dissector guider for focus control,with promising results. In February, an Advisory Committee of the Anglo-Australian large telescope project, including Dr. A. Rodgers, Mount Stromlo; Dr. T. D Kinman, KPNO; Mr. M. Beard, CSIRO; Mr. J. D. Pope, Anglo-Australian Telescope Project, Canberra; and Mr. G. Carpenter, Royal Obser vatory, Edinburgh, met in Tucson to consider telescope acquisition and guidance problems. Dr. H. A. Abt has completed a comparative study of a number of existing coude spectrographs, preparatory for the preliminary design of a fixed spectrograph for the 150-inch telescopes. General Instrumentation - The Research Support Division has com pleted three 3-channel photometers. Two are for use at Kitt Peak and the third for Cerro Tololo. In these instruments, beam splitters are used to divert light to two or three photomultipliers. One difficulty with this kind of instrument results from the polarizing properties of beam splitters. John Richardson, Optical Shop, is investigating ways to minimize this effect. Following an optical design by Dr. Schroeder, Bob Harrison, In strument Shop, has completed an asymmetric Czerny-Turner spec trometer for use with image dissector scanners and the Kron elec- tronographic or other image tubes. The spectral resolution of this instrument at the No.2 36-inch telescope with a 6 arc-second entrance aperture ranges from 5 to 40l with the presently avail able gratings. When used with an image dissector and Don Trumbo's Honeywell 416 computer system, this instrument is a rapid scan ning, programmable single-channel spectrophotometer. It is in tended that the same instrument will function as a multi-channel spectrophotometer when used with the Kron or McGee electrono- graphic tubes.
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