In the September 1996 NOAO Newsletter, we announced the availability of a new near-IR imager with low-dispersion spectroscopic capability as part of a mutual agreement between MDM Observatory, Ohio State University, and NOAO. Since that time, this instrument has been used twice on the KPNO 2.1-m for testing and engineering runs. These runs were quite successful in evaluating the mechanical and electronic interfacing of the instrument to the telescope as well as the performance of the Aladdin InSb array. The results of these engineering runs may be accessed at the Web site http://www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state.edu/~isl/TIFKAM.
OSU is currently installing the f/16 camera assembly and a grism for moderate-resolution spectroscopy in the H band, and working on optimizing the performance of the InSb array to minimize some trails seen on bright objects. These should be complete before the first scheduled run in mid-March.
The announcement of availability generated an enthusiastic response from the user community, with a request of 88 nights (22 on the 4-m) for shared-risk observing in the spring 1997 semester. We were able to schedule 36 nights (15 on the 4-m). We remind users that this instrument is shared with MDM, which faces similar pressure to schedule infrared programs during bright time, so a limited number of nights can be scheduled at KPNO. A number of programs were scheduled with the backup instrument IRIM because of this limitation.
A final note on the instrument designation. The official name of the instrument is TIFKAM, and it is referred to as such in the Web documentation. We have adopted the shorter acronym ONIS (OSU-NOAO Imaging Spectrograph) to fit within the constraints of the scheduling database and request that it be designated as such on your observing proposal.
Richard Green, Dick Joyce, Darren DePoy