Report of the WIYN Review Committee

Overview

The WIYN Consortium has requested an evaluation of the effectiveness of its investment in the WIYN Observatory in advancing its goals for support of astronomical research and education.

The review committee finds that in the five years since first light the WIYN Observatory has become a productive forefront astronomical facility. The value of a 3.5 meter facility will not be diminished as the Gemini and other larger telescopes come on line.

The Committee was pleased to find that the WIYN Observatory and the WIYN Consortium are producing forefront scientific results, and that the collaboration is working well.

Particular highlights include:

• The telescope delivers the best images over a wide field of view of any continental US facility.

• Operations have already achieved an outstanding level of reliability and efficiency.

• The project has had a major impact on the research opportunities available to member universities, involving a broad base of faculty and providing important career development paths for younger faculty and postdocs.

• The number of Ph.D. dissertations is especially impressive, and the number of publications is in line with any facility at this early stage of operations. For the astronomy departments of the universities of Wisconsin, Indiana and of Yale University the WIYN Observatory has become the largest source of experimental data for doctoral theses.

• The project has served NOAO's interests in 1) providing a proving ground for technological innovations necessary for Gemini development; 2) enabling access to wide-field spectroscopy for the US astronomical community; 3) bringing substantial new aperture online very cost-effectively; and 4) demonstrating the intrinsic quality of site conditions at Kitt Peak.

• The spirit of institutional cooperation is high, excellent support staff have been hired, and resources have been managed prudently, all of which enables a good foundation for further development.

• Identifying resources (funds and people) for new instrumentation and major upgrades on an on-going basis.

• Establishing a path to undertake major new projects (e.g. the construction of new instruments) in a timely way and with efficient use of resources.

• Enhancement of instrument-development capabilities at the universities.

• Involvement of more university academic staff.

• Constraints related to NOAO's separate objectives (e.g. competition for NOAO resources; mountaintop operations and interfaces; obligations to the US community).

• Meeting educational goals at the undergraduate level in a way that mutually supports the research effort.

• Formulating an aggressive path for future scientific and educational opportunities.

• Recovering from staff turn-over.

Recommendations checklist

Hardware

All possible resources and manpower should be directed to the improvement of the throughput of the Bench Spectrograph. This is our strongest recommendation.

The WIYN imager and Mini-Mosaic should be outfitted with modern, high-speed controllers as soon as possible. This recommendation is second in priority only to the Bench throughput improvements.

Management

The committee recommends that the WIYN Observatory expand its scientific staff. Research Fellows or postdocs would increase WIYN's high impact science in a few fields.

We recommend pursuing the search for a Director. The Search committee should not neglect operational qualifications in this quest.

Operations

The committee recommends study of the ARC Consortium operations in remote observing.

NOAO should review from a strategic standpoint the decision to cease operation of queue observing.

Instrument development

We recommend that universities offer teaching buyout to help with instrument development.

In the long term, the "soft" ledger imbalance needs attention. [The "soft ledger" is the record of partner contributions that exceed their obligation to the base budget.]