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A Joint Statement of the CTIO and KPNO Users' Committees (1Mar95)
(from Director's Office, NOAO Newsletter No. 41, 1 March 1995)

                             Introduction

The role of NOAO in US astronomy is in a state of transition, due to the
advent of the Gemini telescopes and to steadily increasing budget pressures.
Moreover, a major restructuring of the NOAO instrumentation groups has
taken place, in which instrumentation efforts at CTIO and KPNO have been
largely consolidated. In this unusual climate the CTIO and KPNO Users
Committees decided to meet in a joint executive session, since many issues
relevant to the individual observatories are now so strongly tied to the
overall NOAO night-time astronomy program. Based on the deliberations of that
executive session, the two UsersCommittees have produced the following
joint statement.

                       Joint NOAO Instrumentation

Recently much of the engineering and technical services of CTIO and KPNO
have been consolidated in a move towards a more concerted instrumentation
approach for NOAO night-time astronomy. While some special
instrumentation projects will continue to be carried out strictly with in-house
technical resources at CTIO or KPNO, most major instrument development
will now be carried out through a joint NOAO instrumentation group in
Tucson. The Users Committees endorse this new approach, and expect it to
produce a coordinated and cost-effective plan for common instrumentation at
the two night-time observatories. This is especially important in the current
era of increasingly complex instrumentation. In fact, the new approach
appears to be working well already, and the Users Committees commend in
particular Taft Armandroff and Ian Gatley (heads of the O/UV and IR groups
respectively) for the effective manner in which they have conducted the joint
programs in the short time that the new policy has been in place. We
emphasize that this approach will succeed only if there is an equal
distribution of instruments at the two night-time observatories. This could be
achieved in part by sharing certain instruments between KPNO and CTIO,
such as the larger IR instruments and the CCD mosaic imager. The NOAO
instrumentation group has in fact proposed to share the latter instruments
between the two observatory sites.

The committees would like to see a high degree of management and
accountability built into the new instrumentation program. Our sense is that
this is already happening, but we recognize that this has not always been the
case in the past. In particular, all instrument development should include cost
estimates and time tables for the completion of the instruments from the
initiation of the planning process. It is difficult for review committees (such
as ours) to establish priorities or comment on the timeliness of a project
without having this type of information from the start.

                          O/UV Instrumentation

During the joint sessions of the two Users Committees Taft Armandroff
presented a number of current and proposed future instrument plans for the
O/UV. Projects presently in progress are the transfer of Hydra from the
KPNO 4-meter to WIYN, development of a large mosaic CCD imager and
prime focus corrector for the KPNO 4-meter, and development of foundry
CCDs for both nighttime observatories. We recommend the following list of
priorities for new O/UV instrumentation as these currently active projects are
completed:

1)  Production of a Hydra clone for the CTIO 4-meter.  Enhancing the
multi-object spectroscopic capability in the southern hemisphere for the US
astronomy community is seen by the joint Users Committees as the highest
priority large instrument project for the NOAO instrument group. Delivery of
a Hydra clone to the CTIO 4-meter should be carried out as expeditiously as
possible, but in any event should take place before commissioning of the
Gemini telescopes begins.

2)  Detailed studies for both high-dispersion and low-dispersion
spectrographs.  The joint Users Committees recommend as the next priority
to pursue detailed studies for a low-to-moderate dispersion multi-slit
spectrograph and for a high-dispersion fiber-fed spectrograph. These
spectrographs are intended for the CTIO and KPNO 4-meter telescopes.
Given the very early stages of planning for both types of spectrograph, the
Users Committees are not ready at this point to place a relative priority on
the low-resolution versus high-resolution capabilities.

3)  Large mosaic CCD imager for CTIO 4-meter.  A third priority is the
development of a large (8192 X 8192 pixel) mosaic CCD imager for CTIO,
i.e., a clone of the one currently under development for the KPNO 4-meter
and 0.9-meter, and which will also be shared with the CTIO 4-meter until
the second mosaic imager is built.

                           IR Instrumentation

Ian Gatley reported to the joint committee plans for the NOAO IR
instrumentation program. The basic elements of the program are outlined in
the September 1994 NOAO Newsletter. The joint Users Committees support
this innovative program, as both observatories will benefit by continuing to
have access to state-of-the-art IR detectors and instruments. We support in
particular the sharing of IR instrumentation, such as COB, Phoenix, and
SQIID, between the two sites, and the planned future deployment of Aladdin
arrays at both observatories. We endorse the plan to upgrade SQIID to large
format InSb detectors before deployment at CTIO, and urge for rapid
progress on the design and construction of GRASP to replace SQIID at
KPNO. We note, however, that the IR program as outlined is rather
ambitious, and that, while the Joint Committee hopes NOAO is successful in
meeting its IR instrumentation goals, that success should not come at the
expense of delays in O/UV instrumentation.

                                 IRAF

During the joint session George Jacoby summarized the current status of
IRAF. The role played by IRAF was considered by the CTIO and KPNO
Users Committees in the context of the overall mission of NOAO to provide
telescope access to the user community. Clearly, access to telescopes is of
limited value unless state-of-the-art data reduction facilities are readily
available to the community. Thus IRAF plays a crucial role in the overall
mission of NOAO. The joint Users Committees urge that the IRAF group
continue to be supported at least at its current funding level, even in the
worst case budget scenario. In periods of more favorable budgets we would
recommend that the IRAF programming group be expanded by one or two
positions.

                            Small Telescopes

In an era characterized by the advent of large aperture (i.e., 8-10 meter)
telescopes, the role played by telescopes of smaller (i.e., 1-2 meter) aperture
will remain crucial to many classes of front-line astronomical problems
which are completely ill-suited to, or impossible to carry out on, large
aperture telescopes. The mission of NOAO is to provide facilities with which
to approach a broad range of important astronomical problems, and the
scientific capabilities and user access supplied by small telescopes is critical
to this mission. Thus arguments to shut down smaller facilities in an attempt
to save money in times of declining budgets should be forcefully rejected.
Efforts to minimize the cost of operating small telescopes, in the short run
through single instrument use, queue scheduling, and performance upgrades
on the existing small telescopes, and in the long run through replacements
with modern 2 meter class telescopes, are strongly encouraged. In short, as
NOAO evolves in the future, it must continue to provide the scientific
capabilities and user access currently provided by the smaller telescopes on
CTIO and KPNO.

                  Future of CTIO and KPNO Users Committees

There was considerable discussion at the joint Users Committee executive
session concerning future directions of the Users Committees. As a result of
that discussion, we are making the following recommendations:

1)  The CTIO and KPNO directors should seriously consider merging the
two Users Committees. Given that the instrumentation programs of the two
observatories are becoming so interlinked, it is no longer productive for the
CTIO and KPNO Users Committees to consider instrumentation for the two
observatories in an entirely separate manner. Thus one solution would be to
form a single Users Committee that considers both CTIO and KPNO.
Alternatively, the two Users Committees could continue to remain distinct,
but then a greater portion of the annual meeting needs to be spent in joint
information and executive sessions. If the two committees are merged, it is
important then that issues unique to both CTIO and KPNO still continue to
receive the attention of the merged committee.

2)  This year both Users Committees requested that relevant materials to the
meetings be distributed to the committee members in advance of the
meeting, so that less information had to be processed online and thus more
careful discussion could be generated. We consider this new format to be a
major improvement that would be even more useful if more materials were
to be distributed in advance. As stated in Section 2 above, we consider it
important to receive information on project management for each instrument
program, such as timelines and personnel and materials cost estimates, and
recommend that in addition to the advance materials sent to us this year, next
year's packet should include such information.

3)  We recommend as well that the Users Committee meeting next year
begin with an extra 1/2 day in advance of the main meeting for the
committee members to gather in executive session to discuss priorities and
goals for the meeting. This format should further enhance the ensuing
discussions. However, for the extra 1/2 day to be truly effective, is it
essential for the committee members to receive the advance materials
mentioned above.

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