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Response to the Statement of the CTIO Users Committee (1Jun95)
(from Director's Office, NOAO Newsletter No. 42, June 1995)

The following remarks should be read in the context of my earlier status report
in the March NOAO Newsletter No. 41, p.30. This includes information about
plans and priorities, essentially as provided to the users' committee at its
last meeting. The current note focusses on the specific concerns raised by our
users at that meeting, as published in their statement (also in the March
Newsletter, p.14). The Joint CTIO/KPNO Users committee, in collaboration with
the directors of NOAO, KPNO, and CTIO are initiating an "electronic forum" to
improve the future exchange of information between NOAO and the optical/IR
community.

                         Loss of CTIO scientific staff

The CTIO Users committee statement opens with an expression of particular
concern on two issues. The first is the reduction of the size of the CTIO
scientific staff "which is now severely taxing their ability to maintain the
excellence of the observatory and also carry out their own vigorous scientific
research programs."

CTIO will not reduce its scientific staff positions any further prior to the
Gemini commissioning phase. Any further unavoidable staff cuts that may
arise in the next few years will have to be found from other areas of the
observatory. Some transfers to Gemini seem likely, however, in the medium
term. We will seek to replace some of the lost positions through grants such as
the Gemini Fellowship and Hubble Fellowship programs, by encouraging visits
by graduate students who can assist in our experimental service/queue
observing programs, and by scientists associated with new "independent" or
joint-venture telescopes that may be set up on Tololo or on Pachon. We of
course very much share the concerns of the Users' Committee, but NOAO as a
whole is facing a very difficult budgetary future.

                   The Threat Posed to the Smaller Telescopes

The other main concern of the committee is the threat posed to the smaller
telescopes.

We expect to make significant improvements in the image quality at the 1.5-m
telescope and move towards providing a smaller, but better-performing suite of
instruments operating at one fixed focus at that telescope.  The 1.5-m telescope
presently is used with three different secondary mirrors, each with their own
problems, and a wide variety of instruments. Its imaging performance, and
therefore its scientific productivity, is limited by both optical and thermal
problems. Our goals are to get the optics working properly with a single, fixed
f/13.5 secondary and a restricted complement of instruments and to make
major improvements to the thermal environment. The upgraded telescope
initially would continue to be used with the optical and IR direct imagers and
the optical low-resolution and Fabry Perot spectrometers. We would expect to
shift some of these observational roles over to a new 2.5 m-class telescope in
the future. This will keep the 1.5-m telescope competitive for another 5+ years
consistent with the AURA Board's recent definition of a "minimum viable
NOAO." In FY 1996 the major effort will go into installing large ventilation
louvers into the dome walls (following the example of the KPNO 0.9-m),
improving the removal of waste heat from the console and computer rooms,
providing a corrector for the f/13.5 focus, and converting the spectrograph
from the 1-m telescope to work at the 1.5-m telescope's f/13.5 focus. The latter
will include the completion of a new spectrograph camera, built as a joint
project with STScI, which will give good performance with large-format
CCDs.

We are discussing with various groups the extent to which we can/should
"privatize" the operation of our remaining smaller telescopes as an alternative
to closure, while still retaining at least some of the benefits for our general
user community. We expect that our user community will want to participate
actively in these discussions! We shall be seeking to have discussions with
Yale, Michigan, the SLOAN survey group, and our user committee with a
view to developing a common vision for the future of the 1-m and Schmidt
telescopes, and how they might be replaced at an appropriate time with a more
modern substitute such as a shared 2.5-m wide-field telescope.

The MACHO project is bringing in funds that are now dedicated to this area,
yet the effective cuts imposed on NOAO in FY 1995 were so large that they
wiped out all the new earnings from MACHO and Gemini combined.

As explained elsewhere by Mark Phillips, CTIO hopes to operate the CTIO
0.9-m telescope, and possibly also the Curtis Schmidt, in a service observing
mode. Astronomers will still be assigned specific observing periods during this
initial trial period, but they normally will eavesdrop from their home
institutions rather than travel to CTIO. In this small-scale initial experiment
CTIO will attempt to identify enough direct savings (from not having to
support the in-Chile expenses of visiting astronomers) to pay for the extra cost
of providing observing and data-handling personnel. We believe that this will
improve the scientific productivity and overall cost-effectiveness of the CTIO
0.9-m telescope, and will allow CTIO gradually to phase into a queue
observing program. This will let us gain experience with the new observing
modes which will be used at telescopes such as Gemini and SOAR. These
proposals will be discussed with users during the (northern) summer, using the
electronic forum where appropriate.

The Committee endorses the ongoing efforts to improve the image quality at
the 4-m, particularly in the following areas:

        (1) the active primary support,
        (2) the construction of the image analyzer,
        (3) the autoguiding,
        (4) installation of the f/14 secondary and
        (5) upgrading the telescope control system.

After support of preparations for Gemini (see my article in the March NOAO
Newsletter), CTIO's highest overall priority remains upgrading the image
quality at the 4m telescope. CTIO is fully committed to pursue vigorously the
five areas higlighted by the committee. The highest priority among these five
items is currently being given to finishing the construction and installation of
the image analyser.

The Committee urged that the highest priority (among instrumentation projects
in the short term at CTIO) be given to finishing the implementation of the
three new CCDs.

As the committee noted, this is being done.

The committee noted and endorsed the successful start to the joint efforts
between KPNO and CTIO in the area of IR instrumentation.

CTIO and KPNO both indicated their intention to build on this early success.
CTIO is very pleased with the effect this joint effort has already produced in
allowing us to catch up with the deployment of 256 X 256 arrays for imaging
and spectroscopy.

The committee endorsed the Rice/UNC plan to develop an IR Fabry-Perot for
the CTIO 4-m, noting the success of earlier collaborations, such as the OSIRIS
from Ohio State University.

CTIO intends to use the OSIRIS model as the way to proceed in this case also.

The committee has recommended a prioritized program of upgrades to the
small telescopes.

CTIO intends to carry out these improvements as resources permit, bearing in
mind that unless additional funding comes in from the NSF and/or universities
(such as the case of the MACHO project), the highest priority at CTIO for the
smaller telescopes must be given to the 1.5-m, as detailed above.

Malcolm Smith

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