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

At their first meeting, the CTIO and KPNO Users Committee issued a Joint
Statement reflecting the common needs and concerns of users of both
observatories. The Joint Statement endorsed the new NOAO Joint
Instrumentation Plan, and emphasized the importance of an equal distribution
of instruments at KPNO and CTIO.

  CTIO and KPNO are taking steps together (as a follow-on from last year's
  "NOAO 2000" meeting at Sac Peak) to ensure that an equal distribution does
  result from the output of the central NOAO instrumentation group in Tucson.

The joint committee urged NOAO to produce a clone of KPNO's highly
successful Hydra fiber positioner for use at CTIO. It gave this instrument
highest priority in its list of new O/UV instrumentation projects.

  We have since added that instrument into the long-range planning for the
  instrumentation program.

Other priorities for optical instrumentation suggested by the committee
included detailed studies of new high and low dispersion spectrographs to
replace the R-C and echelle spectrographs at CTIO and KPNO, and the
fabrication of a second, large, Mosaic Imager.

  We are moving ahead as rapidly as possible with that plan.

The Joint Statement also endorses the innovative and ambitious program for
infrared instrumentation outlined in the September 1994 NOAO Newsletter.

  CTIO and KPNO are committed to realizing as much as possible of this
  program. We believe it contains elements which are unique and of potentially
  world-leading capability.

The Joint Committees also noted the importance of IRAF to the mission of
NOAO and urged that the IRAF group continue to be supported at least at its
current funding level.

  We support this recommendation.

The Joint Statement also considered the role of small telescopes at KPNO and
CTIO. The Users Committee encouraged us to consider innovative approaches
to the operations of small telescopes to reduce costs and to consider replacing
the small telescopes with modern 2-m class telescopes.

  Such plans are now under active discussion at CTIO and KPNO, and will be
  discussed more widely with users prior to refinement and implementation
  during the coming year.

Finally, the joint Committees also recommended that we give serious
consideration to merging the CTIO and KPNO Users Committees into a single
committee.

  We concur with this recommendation, and have moved to implement it, as
  described elsewhere in this Newsletter.

We note, in conclusion, that our speed in implementing some of these
recommendations will necessarily be conditioned by the budget made available
for their implementation.

Malcolm Smith, Caty Pilachowski

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