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CTIO Instrumentation (1Jun93)
(from CTIO, NOAO Newsletter No. 34, 1 June 1993)

Summer is traditionally a period where progress on instrumentation projects
is slow, and this year was no exception. Approximately two thirds of CTIO's
ETS resources normally go to the support and maintenance of existing
instruments and telescopes, so when vacations cut into the available work
force, work on new instrumentation grinds nearly to a halt.  This summer was
made more difficult by the untimely failure of the newly commissioned Reticon
1200 x 400 CCD which, after exhaustive testing in the detector lab, was
replaced by the old Reticon CCD, necessitating a complete replacement and
re-wiring of the chip mount (see the accompanying article for more details).

Although no instrumentation projects were completed during this quarter, there
were nevertheless a few small successes. The new IRAF user interface for the
Arcon CCD controllers was tested on the telescope and, after taking care of the
usual number of small bugs, performed well enough to begin being used by
visiting astronomers on the Curtis Schmidt telescope.  The Arcon project group
also provided important software support to the successful tests of a mini-
mosaic at KPNO. Good progress was also made on the completion of the hardware
for Arcon 3.2, which is expected to be controlling one of the Tektronix
1024 x 1024 CCDs by early May.

A milestone occurred when the optical elements for the new 4-m telescope prime
focus corrector were finally completed and shipped to Chile. Work on the
optics was nearly finished when one of the elements was broken accidentally in
the commercial optical shop in late 1991. This misfortune, along with problems
encountered when it finally came time for the manufacturer to glue some of the
elements together, set back the project completion date by more than a year.
Once the lenses arrive in Chile, they will be mounted in the new prime focus
pedestal, with telescope tests scheduled for approximately mid-year.

The f/7.8 secondary is scheduled to be removed from the 4-m telescope in June
for repolishing. In anticipation of this, work continued on the analysis
of the considerable data which have been gathered on the optical performance of
both the secondary and the 4-m primary. Substantial effort also has gone into
setting up and finalizing contracts for the measuring and polishing of the
secondary once it is shipped to the United States.

Mark Phillips

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