Due to scheduling constraints, the McMath-Pierce telescope shutdown in Summer 1997 was one of the shortest on record. Larry Reddell and Teresa Bippert-Plymate measured all of the telescope mirrors with the new Minolta reflectance meter and found that most of the mirror surfaces were in excellent condition after a full year in service. When cleaned, the mirror surfaces showed a degradation over the course of a year of less than 2%! Because of these findings, the decision was made to re-aluminize only the main heliostat, the west auxiliary #2 mirror (due to bat droppings), the east auxiliary #4, and the integrated-light mirror.
The shutdown work was progressing smoothly when the large Stokes vacuum pump for the solar aluminizing chamber failed. Unfortunately, the required parts could not be procured in time for this year's work, and therefore, the mirrors were loaded onto trucks and taken to the 4-m telescope chamber and aluminized. Aluminizing the west auxiliary #2 mirror has been postponed because of access problems. The parts for the chamber have arrived and await installation, and there are plans to revamp the pumps before next summer.
We are grateful to Khairy Abdel-Gawad, Larry Reddell, and the Kitt Peak crew for their efforts in getting the McMath-Pierce back on line in the scheduled time, in spite of the vacuum chamber problems.
Teresa Bippert-Plymate