In the June 1996 Newsletter, we announced that AURA had been " encouraged to find other means to keep in operation those productive telescopes NSF can no longer afford to support." In an accompanying article, Charles Bailyn (Yale) outlined provisional plans to set up a consortium to "privatize" the operation of the 1m Yale telescope for unique kinds of synoptic observing on Cerro Tololo.
An international consortium, consisting of Yale (30% contribution), the University of Lisbon (Portugal; 30%), Ohio State University (30%), and NOAO (10%) has been formed and is working on a memorandum of understanding. Under existing agreements Chile will receive 10% of the telescope time as the host country. So it is expected that NOAO users will retain access to about 9% of the total telescope time, once the telescope is brought back into operation sometime in early 1998.
The 1m will be withdrawn from service on 1 February 1997. Plans are in progress for refurbishment of the telescope, which is expected to begin in March 1997. Yale will contribute most to this activity, which is likely to include the installation of a new telescope control system, as well as improvements to the focusing system and tube ventilation. Portugal will provide most of the funds for operations over a three-year period. Ohio State is constructing a new IR/optical imager for the telescope. By means of a dichroic, the instrument will image the same area of the sky simultaneously onto an optical CCD and an IR array. The consortium intends to provide synoptic observing capabilities in which the community can participate.
Further details of the new consortium's plans will be worked out at a meeting to be held in New Haven in late October.
Malcolm Smith