The Joint NOAO Nighttime Users Committee met in Tucson on 13-14 December 1996. Committee members present were Charles Bailyn (Yale), John Bally (Colorado), Suzanne Hawley (Michigan State), Martha Haynes (Cornell), Robert Mathieu (Wisconsin), Patricio Ortiz (Chile), Kristen Sellgren (Ohio State), Stephen Shectman (Carnegie), Verne Smith (Texas), and Michael Strauss (Princeton). Ben Snavely (NSF, NOAO Program manager) also attended the sessions. The committee split into CTIO and KPNO subcommittees for part of one day. KPNO subcommittee members were Mathieu (chair), Bally, Haynes and Smith. CTIO subcommittee members were Hawley (chair), Bailyn, Ortiz, Sellgren, Shectman and Strauss. The chair of the joint committee rotates between the CTIO subcommittee and KPNO subcommittee chairs; this year was the CTIO turn and Hawley was the joint committee chair.
As in previous years, the committee received written summaries of all presentations before the meeting, as well as published documents and summaries of important meetings that had occurred during the year. The committee heard reports from: Sidney Wolff on the status of the observatories (including the recent NSF review of NOAO, the operational vision for the future, the future of the small telescopes), and the NOAO management structure; David Silva on the continuing experiment with the WIYN queue scheduling; Todd Boroson on the Gemini project, particularly the current USGP activities and how the USGP is evolving within NOAO; Sidney Wolff on the NSF program to provide public access to private observatories; Gerald Cecil (North Carolina & SOAR Interim Project Scientist) on the current status of the SOAR telescope project; and Richard Green on the NOAO instrumentation program.
The committee was pleased to hear the NOAO Director present a positive vision for KPNO and CTIO in which both observatories continue to play a forefront role in national ground-based optical/IR astronomy in the Gemini era. This vision encompasses an array of telescope apertures, including the 0.9-m telescopes with Mosaic imagers in the short term and ultimately 2.4-m telescopes in both hemispheres. It also includes a fundamentally new perception of the observatories as systems, whereby each observatory provides a suite of capabilities for the planning, execution, and data reduction of a scientific program. Successful completion of programs will involve classical observing, queue and service observing at multiple telescopes, and access to databases, all facilitated within the context of the observatory. This approach will provide both superior scientific performance and enhanced efficiency through streamlining operations, avoiding duplication, and unifying processes and functions across sites (including Gemini). We endorse this forward-looking vision; it is essential to the future of the national observatories.
An NSF committee, chaired by Robert Kirshner, was charged with reviewing NOAO and the recent renewal proposal during the summer of 1996. (See last year's users committee report and electronic forum for extensive discussion of the renewal proposal.) Their review was generally positive, and they endorsed the vision presented above. However, parts of the renewal proposal were felt to be hastily prepared, particularly with respect to the 2.4-m telescopes for the northern and southern hemispheres. The NSF committee felt that justification of these telescopes in terms of Gemini support was not adequate; the telescopes must also be justified in terms of forefront scientific programs.
The users committee joins the NSF committee in urging NOAO to prepare a solid scientific case for the 2.4-m telescopes, and to submit a new proposal with all due speed. The continuing threats to the older small telescopes, coupled with the increasing maintenance costs, serve as a sharp reminder that these facilities will not last forever. We agreed to assist in the preparation and internal review of the proposal to provide a community perspective. It is also essential that the optical and infrared community provide broad support for the renewal of the national observatories, and communicate that consensus to the NSF. We must look to the future now, and these 2.4-m telescopes are essential components of both CTIO and KPNO in the Gemini era. This proposal should be a very high priority for NOAO in the coming months.
Turning from the future to the present, the observatories are still in a period of transition. Budgetary reductions and the resulting staff overload have forced the closing of telescopes, causing substantial distress within both the community and recent users committees. Out of this has come a clear and substantive recognition by NOAO that continuity in capabilities is essential as new facilities and instruments come on line and older facilities are retired. The current operations plan calls for the withdrawal of NOAO from the Burrell-Schmidt and the closing of the Coudé Feed telescope in the next year. These closings will not occur until most of the capabilities are replaced; in the case of the Burrell-Schmidt by the Mosaic imager (a wide-field optical CCD camera) on the 0.9-m, and in the case of the Coudé Feed by having a fiber feed from the 2.1-m to the coudé spectrograph. The committee recognizes that replacement of old and progressively less useful facilities is inevitable, and indeed vital for the health of the organization. However, the goal must be replacement rather than simply removal. For these two telescopes, NOAO is taking the right steps to retain most of the capabilities for the community. We were emphatic in our recognition that the 0.9-m and 2.1-m telescopes have now become even more essential in the KPNO operation, and that these telescopes must not be closed, at least until the proposed 2.4-m telescopes are built.
Nonetheless, the proposed closings are not without capability loss, such as long slit high resolution spectroscopy and grism spectroscopy over wide fields. In addition, the number of telescope nights will be reduced. The total number of nights available is critical for synoptic observations, monitoring programs, and large surveys limited by setup time. Many forefront scientific programs require an extended series of nights on a small telescope at an excellent site. We recommend future consideration of the restoration of one or both of these facilities in a minimum-cost, high- efficiency mode.
Finally, the committee heard again of the extreme level of staff overload at both sites. The effort to operate the observatories with the kind of support that the community has come to expect, but with fewer people and less money, is continuing to take its toll on the dedicated staff that remain. As always, the committee wishes to take this opportunity to express our sincere appreciation for their efforts, and to urge the NOAO management to find relief in whatever ways are possible. Having fewer meetings was an option which was universally endorsed.
The NOAO Director and the users committee agree that there is an urgent need for a person to take over the responsibilities of KPNO Director. This person must be an advocate for KPNO within NOAO, and be a liaison with KPNO personnel and the community during the current period of transition. In addition, this person must bring a dynamic vision for the future of KPNO to the development of the 2.4-m telescopes proposal.
In order to immediately address this need, the NOAO Director recommended that Richard Green take on the duties of Kitt Peak Director in addition to his responsibilities as head of Instrumentation. The committee endorsed this recommendation, recognizing the urgency for filling this position and the strong qualifications which Richard brings to both the guidance of Kitt Peak through this difficult time and the development of the proposal. At the same time, the committee expressed concern regarding the ability of one person to handle both positions effectively (particularly in light of a scheduled sabbatical).
The committee sees this only as an interim solution. We feel strongly that an independent KPNO Director (with the same authority as the CTIO Director, head of instrumentation, and USGP Director) should be appointed, after an open search, within two years. At that time we anticipate that KPNO will have attained a stable complement of telescopes and that the status of the 2.4-m telescopes proposal will be resolved.
The NOAO Director also recommended that all user interface development be transferred to the USGP office. The idea is to unify the user interfaces throughout NOAO as the Gemini telescopes become operational. The committee endorses the goal of streamlining operations and agrees that this is an appropriate responsibility of the USGP office (see Gemini section below).
The WIYN queue observing program has been much more effective this year than last. The committee commended David Silva for his forthright acknowledgement of last year's problems, and noted that many of the recommendations from last year have now been implemented - namely, restricting the amount of time spent on a given program to the amount awarded by the TAC, providing better feedback to the users about the status of their programs, and making the queue form that must be submitted with the initial proposal simpler by requiring less detailed information. The telescope itself is also performing more reliably now after an initial period of commissioning. The completion rate of programs in the highest rank queue is now quite high, and the user satisfaction is reportedly also much higher. In addition, the lessons being learned about both scheduling and operating the queue have already proved valuable in continuing discussions of the proposed Gemini queue operations and staffing levels. The committee endorsed the continuation of the queue experiment for another year. At the same time, the committee strongly recommended that NOAO undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the WIYN queue observing program. (The cost of the program is about 2.2 FTE.) A decision will probably be made during the next year about whether to continue to operate the WIYN queue in the future. As usual, if members of the community have strong views, they are encouraged to contact a users committee member.
Two private observatories will soon be participating in the NSF program whereby funding for large instruments is tied to providing telescope access to the community. These are the Hobby-Eberly telescope facility, which will provide ~ 27 nights/year for a period of six years, and the MMT-upgrade facility, which will provide ~ 24 nights/year for a period of six years. It should be noted that the community access is to the facility as a whole, and is not restricted just to the instrument that was funded by the NSF. NOAO's responsibilities under this program are to 1) solicit and evaluate proposals; and 2) establish the approach to observing for community users and provide support and interface between them and the private observatories.
The committee endorsed the idea of the program, but was concerned that community observers might not have adequate support or experience to make effective use of the observing time. The committee was particularly concerned that adequate documentation be provided to the community both during the proposal process and during the actual observing. We discussed ways to promote efficiency, and suggested that queue and service observing are attractive options. An alternative observing mode would be dedication of the private observatory time to long term projects, which would reduce the number of users but enable those users to obtain more useful results. All of these modes should be explored while negotiating the program agreements between NOAO, the NSF and the private observatories. We recommended that users committee members participate in the review of the agreements. The users committee representatives were chosen to be Verne Smith for the HET facility and Bob Mathieu for the MMT facility.
The Gemini project is proceeding on schedule for first light at the Mauna Kea site in December 1998, and first light at Cerro Pachon in June 2000. The USGP is ramping up its effort, with the first scientific staff hirings this year. Much of the USGP effort will soon be directed to the definition of the interface between Gemini and the US community. This includes, for example, providing the information necessary to submit proposals; setting up the TAC process; working with users to define queue programs and prepare for classical observing; and providing data reduction tools. In general, Gemini has a "sea-level to sea-level" policy, and anything that is done before or after the actual observing run is the responsibility of the project office in the partner country. The goal of the USGP is to coordinate with the rest of NOAO so that the community has only one set of proposal deadlines, forms, and so forth to deal with. This goal is reflected in the assignment of Todd Boroson to undertake both the direction of the USGP office, and the user interface for NOAO as a whole, in the management structure discussed above. Other user interface issues include future IRAF development, compatibility with private observatories, archiving and access to archives, and information access for the community (for example, finding out what observing capabilities are available on the various telescopes operated by NOAO and the private observatories).
A second Gemini issue of current importance to the community is an upcoming workshop on the telescope, instrument and software capabilities required to prepare for a successful Gemini run. The users committee certainly will want to send one or more representatives to such a workshop. It is vital that the general community user, without access to private observatory facilities, be on an equal footing in applying for Gemini time. This issue speaks directly to the maintenance of strong national observatories at Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo, with telescopes and instruments spanning a full range of capability. An electronic forum discussion may also be forthcoming concerning what capabilities are required to support Gemini observations.
The committee congratulates NOAO and the SOAR partners (Brazil, Michigan State University, University of North Carolina) for forging the foundation of a successful consortium. Along with WIYN and Gemini, the SOAR telescope exemplifies the vital future of NOAO. The committee supports the ongoing exploration of innovative designs for the SOAR telescope. Once the scientific trade-offs between designs are clarified, NOAO will solicit community opinion in order to guide their contribution to the selection process. User committee members John Bally and Michael Strauss will act as liaisons between NOAO and the community in this process.
The NOAO instrumentation group is currently working on several large programs. The committee was very pleased to hear that Phoenix (high resolution infrared spectrograph) and Mosaic (large format CCD camera) were both tested on small telescopes during the fall semester and appear to be nearly ready for integration as user instruments. Mosaic still suffers from poor CCDs, and the committee heard that good thin chips are being acquired with all possible speed. More generally, the need for continuous access to wide-field optical imaging in both hemispheres was widely recognized. Thus, a Mosaic clone (to be used on the Blanco and Mayall 4-m telescopes, and the KPNO 0.9-m telescope) and a mini-Mosaic camera for WIYN were endorsed as highest priority new starts. Another instrument currently being fabricated is the Hydra clone for the CTIO 4-m. The committee noted the top priority it gave last year to this instrument as a new start, and expressed satisfaction that it is already entering the construction phase.
The committee also discussed wide-field near-IR imaging. The plans for the future include GRASP for the north, and upgrades to COB and SQIID for the south. The committee considers the scientific capabilities provided by GRASP, including both a wide-field near-IR imaging mode and a long-slit spectroscopic mode, to be essential for the north. To that end, we endorse a joint effort between Ohio State and NOAO to build GRASP. If the GRASP design produced by Ohio State cannot be built within the NOAO budget or Ohio State's resources, then an alternate design for an instrument with GRASP's scientific capabilities should be pursued with Ohio State, or an alternate partner sought.
The committee was also asked to comment on the need for a new GoldCam for the 2.1m. The committee identified a clear scientific need for moderate resolution spectroscopy on the 2.1-m - examples include survey projects of relatively bright objects and spectroscopy of extended sources. We find it wasteful and inefficient to have a detector on the current GoldCam which can only be used over part of its length due to the inability to focus at the edges. Furthermore, the committee does not anticipate that the demand on the 4-m for moderate resolution spectroscopy will diminish until well into the Gemini era; thus access to this capability on the 2.1-m will remain important for the foreseeable future. We strongly urge that the new GoldCam be completed in a timely manner.
We discussed the WIYN telescope and instrumentation at some length, and came up with two specific recommendations. First, WIYN provides the best images on the mountain, yet there is no substantial effort underway to achieve forefront angular resolution. At least a tip/tilt capability should be developed. The committee recommends that achieving high-angular-resolution imaging at WIYN should be a high priority in the next year. Second, opportunities for bright-time usage of WIYN are inadequate, as reflected in the present low subscription. This is unacceptable for a state-of-the-art telescope. Possibilities for bright time instruments include upgrading Hydra with a near-IR detector, or providing a wide-field IR imager. The near-IR Hydra capability was endorsed as a particularly interesting option (for both the northern and southern versions of Hydra). In general the committee felt that all possible effort should be made to ensure that the WIYN telescope performs to the limit of its capabilities, and that it is provided with forefront instrumentation.
Finally, the committee was asked to comment on the options for a new instrument, possibly with a start in 1998. A high throughput optical spectrograph was generally endorsed, but the committee agreed that more input from the community would be useful, perhaps through the electronic forum.
Two other issues were discussed briefly. NOAO is experimenting with a small scale graduate student training program, where students spend a period of 1-2 months living at the observatory and participating in the day-to-day technical aspects of observatory operations (e.g. instrument changes, service observing, assisting telescope operators, etc.). It is also possible that students could participate in small research programs in cooperation with NOAO scientific staff. The goal is to provide some aspects of graduate student training in observational astronomy that are not generally available to those students at institutions without privileged access. The committee felt that the philosophy of the program was a good one, but was concerned that the implementation could cost the observatories money (in short supply at the moment), and might impact negatively on the staff if the students were not well chosen. However, we endorsed continuing on a case-by-case basis, with the hope that the universities will absorb the students' costs in exchange for the opportunities being offered. Interested parties should contact Richard Green for more details on this program.
The second issue was the potential competition of the AURA cooperative agreement for the operation of NOAO at the end of the current term. While the committee felt that competition might, in principle, be a good idea, the current lack of definition of the ground rules for the competition process is resulting in serious morale problems among the observatory staff. If the NSF indeed intends to hold such a competition, it needs to clarify the process as soon as possible. We also urge the NSF to define the competition in such a way as to protect the integrity of the observatory infrastructure, particularly its staff.
While all of NOAO suffers from excessively limited resources, each subcommittee met to discuss the implications unique to their observatory.
One of the most critical issues facing Kitt Peak operations is the retention of observing support personnel. Highly talented, well trained, and dedicated staff are as critical to successful astronomical observations as the telescopes themselves. KPNO continues to attract the highest caliber people to observing support. However, in recent years KPNO has not been as successful at retention. The cost is high in terms of lost investments in training, a paucity of highly experienced personnel, loss of institutional knowledge, a lack of continuity for astronomers, and morale. This situation is recognized by NOAO and a plan has been developed to address it.
While the reasons for turnover are diverse, several that can be pointed to are lack of career advancement opportunities, burnout from continuous night shifts, and too limited communication with supervisory staff who work days. The proposed solution is to integrate the telescope operators more broadly with mountain support through regular daytime shifts. Examples include involvement in observer start-ups, support of telescope services and programming, daytime technical assistance, etc. Increased service observing activities would also integrate telescope operators more closely with the science itself. In addition, the creation of a supervisor of observing support provides the day-to-day leadership and advancement opportunity.
Recognizing that this plan may require reductions elsewhere in mountain operations, the users committee strongly endorses this reorganization of duties. We are confident that this will lead to both enhanced fulfillment and reduced stress for the observing support staff. Furthermore, this plan will naturally lead to a greater level of technical expertise on the mountain at night, somewhat offsetting the steady reduction in nighttime technical support. Finally, increased knowledge of the instrumentation will lead to better support of data collection. We recommend that KPNO develop and execute this plan as soon as possible, and urge the inclusion of observing support personnel in the process.
Bruce Bohannan provided a report on improvement projects completed during the past year and plans for FY 1997. The committee admires and appreciates the progress being achieved in spite of resource limitations, and supports the careful and focused prioritization of improvement activities. The top priority has been improvement of image quality at the Mayall 4-m. Median seeing has improved to about 1" due to support refurbishment and quantitative collimation during the 1996 summer shutdown. The committee endorses continued efforts to improve the 4-m performance, including ventilation of the dome, secondary encoding for repeatable collimation, and controlled air flow over the primary.
In accord with the NOAO shift toward a systems approach to observing capabilities, Bohannan is developing a presentation of KPNO capabilities which is organized by function rather than telescope and instrument. Envisioning the observatory as a unified system with a variety of capabilities, and providing interfaces which guide prospective users through the system (e.g., a smart Web page), is a powerful approach which the committee heartily encourages.
The committee was encouraged by the development of a positive vision KPNO's future. While the imminent closing of the Coudé Feed and the withdrawal from the Burrell-Schmidt will be painful, the development of a fiber feed to the coudé spectrograph and the Mosaic camera on the 0.9-m retain many of the capabilities. Furthermore, the presence of Mosaic at the 0.9-m places this telescope at a forefront of imaging work, and provides compelling justification for continued support and upgrades of the 0.9-m until a future generation telescope is built on Kitt Peak. The recent NSF review endorses the future of KPNO as a vital and necessary observatory with WIYN, the Mayall 4-m, and a new generation 2.4-m telescope. We add our endorsement of that vision as well.
Working within this plan, the committee raised two specific concerns. First, the future of WIYN is not being adequately promoted by NOAO. WIYN is the state-of-the-art telescope on Kitt Peak, and yet does not play a prominent role in future instrumentation plans. Even at present WIYN is not oversubscribed in bright time. The committee recommends that NOAO greatly increase the profile of WIYN in both present and future development of KPNO.
Second, the Mosaic camera will serve both the 4-m and the 0.9-m telescopes, with the 4-m having priority. KPNO needs to consider innovative uses of the 0.9-m when the Mosaic is not available. Directed support of synoptic or monitoring programs should be considered, perhaps with a service component. The latter might be linked to graduate student training. At the same time, the use of the Mosaic camera on the 0.9-m will likely raise the operating costs of this telescope. It is essential that this be recognized and incorporated in KPNO planning. The vision of the 0.9-m as replacing the capability of the Burrell-Schmidt demands adequate planning in the face of future budget constraints.
Much of the CTIO subcommittee discussion centered on the future of the telescopes currently at the site and those proposed to be built. The committee agreed that the 2.4-m telescope for the south should be identical to the one in the north. That is, it should be designed for both optical and IR imaging, and the idea of making the telescope compatible with Sloan Digital Sky Survey instrumentation should be tabled for the near term. A radical suggestion was made that a "telescope farm" of perhaps four 2.4-m telescopes could be built quite cheaply, and would go a long way toward providing the kind of commodity time that the community clearly wants. This suggestion met with general approval, but may be too ambitious at the moment. In any case, the 2.4-m telescope(s) proposal was seen to be a very high priority for CTIO as well as for NOAO as a whole.
Of the currently operating telescopes, the Yale 1m is in the process of being privatized with a consortium from Yale, Portugal and Ohio State. The ASCAP is to be replaced with an optical/IR imager provided by Ohio State, and the telescope will be operated in a queue observing mode optimized for synoptic and target-of-opportunity observations. Under the plan now being finalized, the NOAO users community will retain a 10% share of the telescope; thus users will have an opportunity to propose for these kinds of observations. The Curtis-Schmidt will remain in operation for a period of perhaps two more years, and discussions are underway with the University of Michigan regarding ways to continue its operation beyond that. The 0.9-m and the 1.5-m are planned to continue operating for the foreseeable future, at least until the status of the proposed 2.4-m telescope(s) is decided.
There are several new private telescope projects on the mountain, including
the 2Mass survey telescope, an H
survey instrument, and a USNO telescope.
On the whole, the CTIO operation appears to be in excellent shape after a
painful period of downsizing in the past few months. We commend the CTIO
Director for his leadership during this period and hope that the situation
will now be stable through the period of Gemini commissioning. We also
heartily endorse the recommendation that the NSF take over
responsibility for meeting exchange rate fluctuations.
The committee also discussed the SOAR telescope and was enthusiastic in its endorsement of the project and excited by the prospect of a new 4-m telescope in the South. The possible new science capabilities of a low scattered-light design were thought to be of interest to the community, and we look forward to seeing a more detailed discussion when the current studies are completed. The ability to accommodate Gemini instrumentation was seen as an important aspect of SOAR, providing that this can be accomplished in a cost-effective way. The committee agreed that a near-infrared spectroscopic capability at SOAR was a very high priority, whether or not SOAR is able to share Gemini instrumentation. Malcolm Smith presented airflow models suggesting that turbulence induced by a large dome at the site of the current 16" dome on the CTIO summit, which is being considered as a site for SOAR, might impact on the seeing at the Blanco 4-m. Although the committee thought that the models were inconclusive, we were emphatic that the SOAR telescope should not be sited where it would have an adverse effect on the Blanco seeing. The committee also concurred with the NSF review panel in urging the NSF to provide adequate funds for the operations phase of SOAR.
The ongoing improvements to the 4-m optics have made a quantitative difference in the median image quality. The tip/tilt f/14 secondary should be in normal operation in the next year, with the goal of delivering 0.25" images in the K-band. The current instrumentation project for CTIO is the Hydra clone (in fabrication). The Mosaic clone (highest priority next start) will allow continuous access to wide-field imaging in both the north and the south. In addition, an Aladdin array will eventually be installed in the IRS to upgrade the IR spectroscopic capability. There are a few planned upgrades to the 1.5-m telescope/building including dome ventilation, control system upgrade and improvements to the f/13.5 and f/7.5 secondary mirrors and supports. These are considered to be fairly low cost, intermediate steps to be undertaken rather quickly, while the 1.5-m telescope is required to bridge the gap between the current telescope complement, and that expected in the early 2000's. The committee endorsed these instruments and improvement plans.
As with NOAO in general, the staff at CTIO is heavily overworked, and the loss of postdocs has in particular had an adverse scientific effect. The committee recommends strongly that NOAO take steps to regain the normal staffing level at CTIO, especially with regard to postdocs. We also want to take the opportunity to recognize the excellent working relationship between the Chilean staff and CTIO, and our hope that this continue in the future.
In summary, the committee was pleased with the positive tone and forward-looking plans for the future of the observatories. Times are changing; the community will soon have more aperture-nights and fewer telescopes than in the previous 30 years. The transition period we are currently experiencing has not been pleasant, but we are optimistic that both KPNO and CTIO will continue to provide the forefront capabilities that the community needs to be competitive. Both NOAO and the user community must be willing to accommodate change during this difficult period.
Communication between the observatories, the funding agency, and the community was a topic of discussion throughout the meeting. There was widespread acknowledgement of important communication gaps between NOAO, NSF, and the user community. Their origins are several. The memberships of NSF review panels do not adequately reflect the user community. In particular, scientists of the very highest caliber are becoming more and more widely distributed within the academic community. NOAO plays an essential role in support of research at smaller institutions, not just for education but for the production of superb science. Review panels must reflect this demographic change, and more generally the NOAO user community, to enable the NSF to better understand community needs and opinion. Communication between NOAO and the community has also been limited, and the result has been numerous misperceptions on both sides. NOAO must make available the background information necessary to promote a useful dialogue, and incorporate the community in the development and review of planning and proposals. At the same time, the community must make the effort required to develop informed opinions. Perhaps most importantly, it is essential that all of these endeavors foster a trust that has been missing of late.
The committee recognizes that the education of the community and the promotion of better communication between the various segments of the community is a high priority, and charged itself to take on a more active role. For example, this report will be posted on the Web with links to additional information made available to the committee during our meeting. The electronic forum will be continued; likely topics in the next year include the upcoming Gemini workshop, the SOAR telescope design, science with the 2.4-m telescopes, and new instrumentation at NOAO. The users committee is also considering holding discussions at AAS meetings, in order to promote better communication between NOAO and the community. Other ideas are welcomed.
Finally, as always, we urge the community to work together to promote astronomy as a whole. A strong and vital NOAO is essential for many of us, and we welcome your comments and suggestions. Please contact any users committee member, or next year's chairperson Bob Mathieu, with your ideas and concerns (mathieu@madraf.astro.wisc.edu) .
Suzanne Hawley, Bob Mathieu and the Members of the Users' Committee