Minutes from September 1999 EXES Meeting

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John, Dan, Mary Kay, Tommy, and Matt attending

Schedule:
McDonald telescope proposals are due Sep 30. We need a Jan/Feb run in order to propose for IRTF time by April 1. Would like 1 week of observing time at McDonald.
Want to have EXES dewar and some parts by beginning of next summer.

Dewar Design:
Optimistic schedule has design package ready for FAA review by mid-Oct. If all goes well, we could order dewar by Jan 1. If there are no problems during manufacture, dewar could show up here by summer 2000.
Jeff Cottrell, McDonald Observatory draftsman, should be here through Jan 1.
Prototyping of G10 fiberglass dewar supports is proceeding. Tommy and John have made .5 scale model that shows the dominant failure in compression is bowing of fiberglass. With central support from metal sheet, get substantial improvements in strength. Plan to take to Mech Eng department for destructive, quantitative tests.

Optics:
CO2 laser tests of 36 inch grating achieve design resolving power of 100,000. With pixels that were undersampling diffraction pattern, measured Gaussian fits that gave full-width at half maximum of 2 pixels.

Electronics:
Bare readout (744 multiplexer) should arrive any day now. Expect 2 month delay for science array. Cables from dewar to boxes are still needed. Wallace equipment is missing EPROM programs for 744 multiplexer and communications board for PC.
Dan anticipates electronics will not be ready by the time detector shows up. Believes January is too early for a telescope run.
We need to purchase an A/D board for Wallace system for winter telescope run.

Software:
Software will be written in C, Tcl/tk, and IDL. C will be used for low level drivers, Tcl/tk will be woven in with Wallace's user interface, IDL used for quick-look data analysis. Matt expects to use McDonald help for writing C routines detailing sockets. More planning needs to be done before approaching McDonald for specific help and before dividing up tasks to avaiable people.
Matt came up with a routine to deskew, spectrally collapse, and combine orders using a template such as a pinhole. It gives reasonable results, but can be improved.

EPO:
Send ideas and availability for next EPO meeting.

Action Items:
Mary Kay:

  • Organize next EPO meeting agenda.

    Matt:

  • Work on McDonald telescope time proposals.
  • Come up with requirements for A/D board.
  • Alert McDonald about needing software help, particularly with sockets, sometime in mid-October.
  • Finish plans for software programs.

    John:

  • Work on McDonald telescope time proposals.
  • Continue dewar design.
  • Assist Frank Ray in FAA analysis.

    Dan:

  • Work on McDonald telescope time proposals.
  • Contact Wallace about communications board and EPROMs.
  • Push to get TEXES cables completed.
  • Check-out electronics system.

    Tommy:

  • Work on McDonald telescope time proposals.
  • Finish G10 fiberglass testing.
  • Assist Dan in check-out of electronics.

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    This document last updated: 20 Sep, 1999