Through the end of April 1997 the NOAO WIYN Queue has been able to obtain data only during 50% of the time allocated to the Queue. The weather has been particularly bad during April. For example, during the 29 March-3 April observing run only 8 hours were usable out of a possible 55 hours. The weather also plagued the "bright" April run with 32/52 usable hours, but much of this time was hampered by cirrus. All told, of the 29 Queue nights through the end of April, only 10 were unaffected by weather, four were totally lost (including the night of 3 April when it snowed on the mountain!), and observations could be made for only two hours or less on another six nights.
Progress in executing the "High Priority" Queue has been greatly slowed by the weather. As a result, it will be difficult to make substantial progress in the "Best Effort" Queue for the remainder of the semester (see our Web page http://www.noao.edu/wiyn/obsprog/queue/S97/QueSumS97.html for definitions of the various WIYN Queues and the current status of the spring 1997 Queue observing programs). Although 14 of 24 long programs have been activated so far this semester, few have been completed. Roughly 240 hours were allocated to high-priority long programs and only 82 hours have been executed so far. At the writing of this article there are approximately 170 hours left in the NOAO WIYN Queue allocation with about 30 hours falling within the traditional thunderstorm season (July-August). Most of this remaining time will need to be spent completing as many of the high-priority programs as possible.
On a brighter note, the performance of the telescope and associated hardware/ software has been much more reliable this semester than last. Outside of problems with the brake system of the telescope mount during cold weather at the beginning of the spring 1997 semester, little time has been lost to technical problems. The WIYN Queue Team thanks the technical staff headed by Dave Sawyer (WIYN Observatory Site Manager) for their efforts in improving the operation of the WIYN telescope.
We are eager to receive feedback from investigators who have received data from the WIYN Queue during the current semester and/or past semesters. In particular, we would like to know if the data delivered attain the quality requested in your proposal. Please email any comments, suggestions, or complaints to wiynq@noao.edu. We would also appreciate receiving preprints and/or reprints of any research that includes data obtained from the WIYN Queue Observing Program. Please send relevant publications to:
WIYN Queue Experiment
c/o Paul Smith
National Optical Astronomy Observatories
P.O. Box 26732
Tucson, AZ 85726-6732
Paul Smith, for the WIYN Queue Team
(Di Harmer, Alex Macdonald, Daryl Willmarth)